Tokyo, Japan – IGAS (Booth E-3-09) – 23 September 2003 – Agfa announced that the company's new manufacturing facility in Wuxi, China will launch operation 30 October 2003. The Wuxi plant will produce Agfa's portfolio of digital and analogue plates to meet Asia's increasing demands for quality printing technology. The Wuxi, China, plant is the most recent addition to Agfa's list of worldwide plate manufacturing sites. Agfa's other plate manufacturing sites are located in: Wiesbaden, Germany; Branchburg, New Jersey (USA); Leeds, UK; Pont-a-Marq, France; Suzano, Brazil; and Banwol, Korea. The Wuxi plant will produce plates with Agfa's highest quality standards. Area printers will be able to receive deliveries much more quickly than in the past, thereby improving the competitiveness of Asian printers in the global market. Plant Manager, Thorsten Lifka, former Plant Manager of Agfa's Suzano manufacturing plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil, will oversee operations of more than 100 local employees who have been fully trained according to Agfa's quality standards. Agfa experts will remain on site at Wuxi through the end of 2003. "China requires about 45 million meters of plates to support its active print industry. More than 80,000 printers in China produce over 150,000 books, 8,000 magazines and 2,000 newspaper titles each year, and the Wuxi facility will help to make those printers more efficient and productive," Lifka said. Plate Production. The full capacity of the plant is 25 million square meters a year. The plant will produce the positive analogue plate :Meridian P51 and negative analogue plate :Zenith N555 for the Asia-Pacific (ASPAC) markets. The plant will also produce the :Thermostar P970 digital plate and starting Q3 2004 it will produce :N91 digital photopolymer plates.