Frank Romano: We are here in Dubai with the Editor of Middle East Printer.

Alex Jahanbani: Hello, my name is Alex Jahanbani. I’m Editor-in-Chief of M.E. Printer Magazine. And I was fortunate enough to know Frank since 2000, drupa 2000. And since then we’ve become friends, and we did some events together, and it's a good relationship that’s going on.

Frank Romano: And we’ve been here in Dubai. I came on the Queen Mary II. And my friends here at Middle East Printer have been my chauffer and my interpreters. So, here we are in one of the most modern, wonderful cities I have ever been in. How is the printing industry doing here in United Emirates?

Alex Jahanbani: Well, in UAE, was growing very fast before the recession. And print houses, they start buying eight-color presses, large new equipment, binding equipment, and everything. But the economy was growing so fast. But when the recession hit and we had the real estate collapse here in UAE, then what happened, there was overcapacity. The were a lot of equipment that they had to be running, newly bought, but the market wasn’t there anymore. So what happened, there was a price war between the printers, but now again the economy’s growing. So I’d say, at this UAE printing business is pretty well for time being. But then again, if you look at the GCC company, the biggest markets are UAE and Saudi Arabia. The rest are all small countries with small printing industries.

Frank Romano: Now, you’ve just shown me some directories of Iranian printing companies. Now it seems to me the Iranian printing industry is doing phenomenally well.

Alex Jahanbani: Yeah. Iran is an interesting country. It’s the biggest market in the Middle East. But there is a lot of political issues. There’s sanctions on everything. And there’s a bad always negative news about Iran. But when everything comes to printing it’s very vibrant. There are almost more than 4,000 print houses, and there are a lot of packaging companies coming to the market. Publishing is growing. The print industry’s growing enormously. And a lot of new investments. Although sanctions are hitting hard in the industry, but still there are a lot of investment going on, a lot of movement going on in the printing industry. And you see a lot of Iranians in Drupa this year. Many people from drupa in Middle East, and from Iran in the Middle East will be participating in Drupa, looking for new technology and new investment opportunities.

Frank Romano: Lastly, with the Arab Spring, what happened in Libya and in Egypt, I understand the newspaper industry there is growing very well.

Alex Jahanbani: Actually it affected printing industry negatively and positively. Some countries for example Saudi Arabia they used to export a lot of printing to Syria, for example. But what happened in Syria especially when it comes to packaging, packaging food from Saudi Arabia to Syria. But now, what happened to Syria, that market is lost, but a gain. With the new Arab Spring, political freedom, and more movement socially and culturally, there are a lot of newspapers coming up to the market. For Example in Libya we heard there are 200 although in Africa, not Middle East, but this is example of what Arab Spring did. 200 more newspapers, or new newspapers are coming to the market. There were virtually no print industry in Libya during the Gadhafi preriod. He burned actually destroyed all the print houses. There were only a few print houses. Now many, many new print houses are coming to the market. And there are, for example, in Iraq also. There are large new newspapers, print houses. There are a lot of movement in buying presses and everything. So you see a lot of movement when it comes to printing in this country, which is a good sign.

Frank Romano: Well, this is our short interview. This is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com. Thank you very much, Alex.

Alex Jahanbani: Thanks.