Halle/Westphalia. May, 2005. The German company FLEXICON AG, one of the leading prepress providers for top-quality packaging, has opened up the Middle Eastern market for the European consumer goods industry: the joint venture Zincograph FLEXICON Saudi Arabia has now been established in Jeddah, a metropolis of two million. Saudi Arabia is considered the most significant market for the production of competitively priced consumer goods packaging in the Middle East and is at the same time an important hub in the region. Commercial agreements extending all the way to North Africa simplify the transfer of products or tools, such as printing plates. FLEXICON, one of the large flexo-printing plate producers on the European continent, recently entered into an ex-clusive collaboration with Zincograph Jeddah Saudi Ara-bia. The joint venture Zincograph FLEXICON SA com-bines the regional market knowledge of the Saudis with the quality know-how of the Germans. The collaboration has already yielded some initial fruit: Zinograph owner Ali Ghamdi sent a number of his 20 em-ployees to the FLEXICON Training Center in Germany. And FLEXICON’s Plate Production Manager Sören Tyska set up CTP production plants and quality control centers in Jeddah modeled after the German standard. Extensive test runs have already proven that the cooperation is run-ning without a hitch, stated Michael Thies, Technical Di-rector of FLEXICON AG. Another reason for this success, he explains, is the fact that both partners – as owner-operated companies – have short decision-making paths and thus a high level of flexibility. “Plate production in the Middle East enables us to deliver printing plates to the local printers of our international customers more quickly than in the past“, says Gabriele Kison, management board member of FLEXICON AG. Zincograph founder Ali Ghamdi is also very pleased about the collaboration: “The more extensive experience and high level of innovation evident at FLEXICON helps us raise all of our production processes to the highest inter-national standard.“ Following Shanghai and Dalian (China), Geneva (Switzer-land) and Florence/Kentucky (USA), Jeddah is the fifth largest foreign site in the world of German prepress spe-cialist FLEXICON. This summer Zincograph FLEXICON plans to open a sales office for flexo-printing plates in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.