Over many years I have been going to many countries of South East Asia that Frank visited and have seen how the printing industry has developed. Apart from Japan where there have always been printers of the very highest quality, what I found initially were one of two real quality state of the art printing establishments using the very latest equipment, and producing work of superb quality. Examples of these long-standing high quality printers that were highly competitive include C&C Offset Printing in Hong Kong and Cyberprint in Thailand.

I recently had the honor of speaking at the ADDA Conference in Singapore and attending the 6^th annual Asian Print Awards presentations. This is organized and run by Paul Callahan, SE Asia best known print publisher, and is sponsored by many of the leading industry suppliers. In many parts of the world print awards are very popular to identify the best printers in a particular country. They are also a good opportunity for printers to get together over an enjoyable dinner and the occasional tipple of alcohol. What is unique with the Asian Print Awards compared with other country print awards? Entries come from all over SE Asia and this year there were over 400 entries, the largest number coming from Japan. There was a 60% increase over 2007 in entries in the digital sector.

I had the opportunity to spend some time looking at all the nominated entries selected by the judges for the short list for winning either Gold, Silver or Bronze awards prior to the awards dinner. I was highly impressed with the quality of the print and innovative approaches being shown. This was using both offset and digital printing.