July 23, 2004 -- With a daily circulation of more than 280 000 copies, Utusan Malaysia is Malaysia’s leading publisher of Malay language daily newspapers and has been a MAN Roland customer for many years. With a total investment sum of around EUR 15 million for a new printing plant and new presses, the group is about to considerably expand its colour and pagination capacity. Utusan Melayu has ordered a UNISET with an hourly output of 75 000 copies from MAN Roland for its new plant in Seberang Perai, Penang in the northern region. This pressline is configured for full four-colour production and will form the heart of a new printing plant scheduled to go on stream in early 2006. This investment will boost hourly output from the present 30 000 newspaper copies per hour up to 75 000. The company has also ordered an extension GEOMAN tower for its main printing plant in Bangi in the central Region. This EUR 2 million investment is primarily intended to improve pagination and colour pages and, together with the new printing plant, is aimed at helping the group take advantage of the anticipated advertising boom which will require greater four-colour capability. Last year the publishing group increased its advertising revenues by 12 percent to around EUR 30 million and forecasts a further increase of 20 percent for this year. The advertising boom in Malaysia is being driven mainly by big sports events like the European Football Championships in Portugal and the Olympic Games in Athens, but companies in the fields of telecommunications, real estate and consumer goods are also advertising more in daily newspapers. The contracts signed in June for the UNISET pressline and GEOMAN extension tower were already put in motion during the recent drupa with a “Letter of Undertaking“.