The Yemeni Government owned 14th October Foundation for Journalism, Printing and Publishing has placed an order with Goss International for a Goss Community SSC single-width press. The new press will meet the demand for increased color and circulation in the region and will print its namesake, the government daily newspaper, 14th October.

Project manager at 14th October Foundation, Ahmed Moataz, comments, "We already operate a Goss Community press and are confident in its durability and print quality so had no hesitation in ordering a second press when we wanted to expand our capacity. With a requirement for increased circulation and the demand for additional color pages within our titles, now is the right time for us to invest to help us secure our future in the market."

Across its web and sheet-fed business, 14th October Foundation currently prints approximately 35 percent newspapers, 25 percent magazines, 20 percent commercial material and 20 percent books. "Although we print a variety of different products at our facility we think that the newspaper side of the business currently has the most potential for growth," confirms Moataz. "Our location in Aden City in the south of Yemen means that we are ideally placed for any development within the market. Currently, there are just two companies that provide web-fed printing in Aden and once the new Goss press is installed we'll have the capability to print approximately 60 percent of the total volume of printed newspapers in the whole of the city."

The order for the new Goss Community SSC press at 14th October was secured with local support from Al-Kamel Establishment. The new press will be configured as two four-high and two two-high towers, with six reelstands and a Goss N40 folder to give the flexibility for future expansion. With a cutoff of 578 mm the publisher will be capable of printing 24 pages broadsheet of which eight will be in four color.

Moataz confirms that one of the biggest challenges in the market is the increasing use of electronic news websites to disseminate news quickly across the country: "This increase in popularity of online news sites prompted us to re-evaluate our own titles and invest in technology that will give us faster production and enable us to produce a higher quality product for our readers to make it a more attractive and dynamic publication."