Montreal, May 29, 2003 – At a ceremony attended by a hundred guests representing the political and economic interests of the region, Transcontinental today officially inaugurated its new printing plant in Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island. Located between Charlottetown and Summerside and specialized in newspaper printing, the 28,000-square-foot plant will primarily serve to produce the National Post for the Maritime Provinces, along with the Summerside Journal-Pioneer, and The Charlottetown Guardian, two dailies acquired by Transcontinental in 2002. The plant will also handle commercial printing for customers of the former Williams and Crue, another 2002 acquisition that has now been integrated into the new entity. Particular efforts will be made to increase commercial printing volumes, most notably with Transcontinental’s newspaper customers. The PEI plant represents an investment of $3 million and will do business under the name Transcontinental Prince Edward Island. Rémi Marcoux, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Transcontinental Inc., highlighted the significance of this inauguration for Transcontinental: "When we acquired the publishing and printing assets from CanWest last year, we did so with the intention of developing and improving those assets by continuously investing in the product and in the community. This new plant goes to show how far we have already gone in that direction. The Atlantic Provinces have become an important market to our development. They are a part of the country that we believe show great promise and potential and to which we are firmly committed." For his part, François Olivier, Senior Vice President of the Newspaper Group at Transcontinental Printing – Information Products, said: “Transcontinental has a goal of strengthening its positioning as the leading independent newspaper printer in Canada. It’s a strategy that is founded on the belief that newspaper publishers will increasingly choose to outsource their printing activities in order to concentrate themselves on what they do best – produce quality content. The addition of this new plant to our already impressive network of 14 newspaper printing facilities across Canada is a great step in that direction. “I am proud to say that this project was conceived, planned and realized by 100% maritime talent,” concluded Mr. Olivier. “I’d like to thank all the employees, customers and suppliers who contributed to making it such a tremendous success.”