In North America, we hear constantly about the importance of value-added services and understanding customer business problems as a key to success in the printing industry. Does this sound familiar? “Traditional printing businesses do nothing but print. But modern printing firms have expanded their services into a number of new areas. Content management is one such new area. As modern printing is almost entirely handled electronically, local printing firms have realized the importance of providing value-added content support for clients.” Duluth MN? Skokie IL? Irvine CA? No, this came from an article about the burgeoning printing industry in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, published in the Shenzhen Daily. If you - like me - thought that price was the only decision criteria that would push printing offshore to China, think again. In addition to being able to print materials in China at as much as 30% less than in the U.S., long-run print jobs from China are generally delivered in eight to ten weeks. Although that time differential may seem excessive, for materials that are not time-sensitive, buyers seem to be increasingly willing to wait in order to achieve the lower price point.

One could almost say that China invented printing, with the invention of engraved block printing in AD 593, a thousand years before Gutenberg. This technology was then distributed to other parts of the world along with the Silk Trade.

Today, China is again poised to have a huge impact on the printing industry. China is rapidly establishing its place as a world printing power. According to PIA reports, in 2003, China had over 163,000 graphic arts establishments including 92,400 printing plants and 71,200 copy shops with three million total employees. By comparison, the U.S. has over 44,000 printing plants with approximately one million employees. It should be noted, though, that the comparison may not be quite “apples to apples,” as the Chinese printing plant establishment data likely includes a broader swath across the printing industry, including such things as textiles, signs and other niche sectors that are not typically considered as "commercial printing,” while the U.S. numbers are more focused on the commercial printing and packaging sectors.