Twelfth Five-Year Development Plan: Breaking Through Two Major Barriers to Build a Five-Year Road to a Printing Powerhouse

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Feng Fei, director of the Industrial Economics Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council of China, is cited as saying that the 12th Five-Year Plan period is both a golden period of development for the Chinese economy and a period in which contradictions are prominent. During this period, the contradiction between heavy chemical industry and the low-carbon economy will become more acute; at the same time, the acceleration of urbanization will also prompt further adjustment of the industrial structure. The printing industry, too, has numerous contradictions during the 12th Five-Year Plan period; a good development environment and the weak momentum of reform among printing enterprises will be the embodiment of the main contradiction in the coming five years.

Within the General Administration of Press and Publication's plan for the coming five years, by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan period major progress shall have been made in China's transformation from a big printing country to a strong printing country, striving to achieve the goal of becoming a strong country ahead of schedule within the news and publishing industry. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the growth rate of China's total printing industry output value shall basically keep pace with national economic development. National printing demonstration bases shall be established and improved, and a number of competitive printing enterprises shall be cultivated. With primary and secondary school textbooks, government procurement products and food and drug packaging as the focus, green printing shall be vigorously promoted. With digital printing, digital workflows, CTP and digital management systems as the focus, digital technology shall be promoted throughout the industry.

During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, two difficulties exist in the development of China's printing enterprises; like two chasms blocking the development of printing and publishing, China's printing industry needs to make full preparations to cross these two chasms.

Chasm: industrial structure — a stumbling block in the development of the printing industry

Mr. Han Xiaoliang, a printing press expert in China, says: "The main gap between China's printing manufacturing industry and large foreign manufacturing enterprises lies neither in product quality nor in product technology, but mainly in the production structure and the product structure." China's printing industry started late; only in the 1950s did the country come to have a printing press manufacturing enterprise, the Beijing People's Machinery Plant. But China's printing industry has indeed developed very fast, thanks to the development path of China's printing enterprises, which in the early stage focused on imitation, rapidly enriching the products of enterprises and taking the price route. Although this model saved most of the product R&D time in the early stage, in later development its drawbacks can be described as numerous.

1. A single industrial structure and backward product technology. The direct result of long-term imitation is the loss of the capability for independent innovation. Although many enterprises have now begun to pay attention to technological innovation, compared with advanced foreign technology our pace still lags half a step behind. Many of our enterprises carry out innovative R&D following foreign technology, and their backbone is still the imitation of foreign enterprises. In the choice between the active and the passive, China remains in a passive position; whether CTP or the green and low-carbon model, China is being led by others and has not formed an independent innovation system.
2. Low process orientation of the industry. Making whatever machine sells well is a common failing of most Chinese enterprises; you will find a very interesting phenomenon — a company that a month ago was clearly making printing presses may a month later have switched to making post-press equipment. Although there may be many other variable factors at work, the low process orientation of products is obvious. Take Heidelberg: Heidelberg's Speedmaster series of products, from low-end to high-end, achieves process-based industrial production, which gives it a very good ability to withstand unexpected events, just as in the 2008 financial crisis, when Heidelberg, though severely affected, still did not have its foundations damaged.

In terms of industrial structure, the coming five years are a project that printing enterprises need to focus on reforming. How to break through the constraints that industrial structure imposes on the development of printing enterprises is a question that people in the printing industry have to consider.

The second chasm: building an environmental protection system — the second stumbling block in the development of printing enterprises

The main content of building an environmental protection system is to promote green development and guide the green transformation of the industry. Jointly with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, formulate and improve green and environmental printing standards, establish a whole-process green printing standard system from raw material procurement to printing production and through to the recovery of products after use, and gradually form a relatively complete green and environmental printing management and standards system.

After the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference ended, low-carbon environmental protection became a task that everyone and every enterprise had to shoulder. As a member of social development, a printing enterprise is duty-bound to pursue low-carbon development. Yet China's printing enterprises are still mainly small and medium-sized ones, accounting for nearly 80%, and these small and medium-sized enterprises do not have the ability to build low-carbon environmental protection systems. Because these enterprises have weak working capital and are not able to develop environmental protection systems independently, they need a certain degree of support from the state in terms of policy.

In the 12th Five-Year Plan, building competitive printing enterprises is a major goal for future development. So a reshuffle of the printing industry within five years is unavoidable, which means that a considerable number of small and medium-sized enterprises will face forced restructuring and acquisition. This plays a very good role in promoting the development of China's printing industry as a whole, but how to arrange the surplus labor that arises from corporate mergers is also a question that such large printing enterprises and the state need to consider. There is a passage in Confucian doctrine that goes: "The people are the most precious; the state comes next; the ruler is the lightest." We can see the ancients' esteem for "the people", so in the coming five years of economic development, while the economy develops, handling the problem of surplus labor well is also a question that enterprises and the state need to consider earnestly.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362177.html