May 19th, 2005 - Goss International predicts its Shanghai joint venture facility will continue to grow in 2005 and beyond. With China's economy in overdrive, there is no better place to be for a high technology business than Shanghai, China, the industrial urban powerhouse at the center of the economic miracle in the world's most populous country. Shanghai Goss Graphic Systems Co Ltd (SGGS) is the largest joint venture press manufacturer in China and is an ISO 9001 certified high-technology enterprise with a plant that covers more than 76,500 square meters. Products include web offset presses for newspaper and book printing, commercial sheetfed presses and metal printing and coating equipment, some of which are sold just in the Chinese domestic market. SGGS is a key regional business segment of Goss International and an important global resource for the company. CEO Bob Brown underlined that when he said recently, “Last year we shipped 1,000 Goss Community units from the SGGS facility for new presses and tower additions. We have been successful with it, and the quality of the product is well accepted around the world. So the model is proven that you can build quality products there. We have a strong position in China and will continue to grow that.” Formed in 1994, SGGS is a joint venture company with Shanghai Electric Group (originally Shanghai Renmin Machinery Plant) that builds printing equipment for both the domestic Chinese and global markets. The most popular product made by SGGS is the Goss Community press which has become the press system of choice for small format newspaper and insert printers around the world. The Goss Community press is a single width, one plate-around web offset press for printing color newspapers and semi-commercial products. It is known worldwide as a productive, durable, flexible and operator-friendly press for local newspaper and contract print production. Jim Ladage, General Manager of SGGS since 1997, has been involved from the very beginning of the joint venture. He is confident about the future. “China's GDP is growing at around 9.5 per cent a year. The printing industry in China is growing at around 12-15 per cent. The demand is enormous. We have sold products to every province in China including Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang in the far west of the country,” he said. Richard Sutis, President of Goss International, has 25-year's involvement in China. He claimed, “We utilized a joint venture to bring our Western design and methods to market in domestic China as well as in export of precision machinery around the world. We look for continued growth in both markets from this great vertically integrated facility.” Russ Kliese, Director of Manufacturing, SGGS, concludes, “I have been associated with Goss branded presses for 26 years. I like to think I'm putting 26 years of experience to use in Shanghai. I've never had so much fun in my life. There's so much opportunity here. It's a thriving, productive, opportunistic market. People really have to see it to believe it. It's the most exciting place in the world.”