English Language Papers Thrive in Dubai

Fortunately for press manufacturers there are still regions that are hardly affected by the worldwide economic crisis.

Fortunately for press manufacturers there are still regions that are hardly affected by the worldwide economic crisis.

One of those is Dubai in the Middle East.

The English-language newspapers produced in the Emirate on the Persian Gulf offer their advertisers high-impact inserts through mixing heatset and coldset web press production.

Mike Ziegler is MAN Roland's deputy vice president of sales responsible for the Middle East and for more than 10 years he has closely followed the transformation of what was once a sleepy Emirate into a highly commercialised economy.

As the resident representative of the Augsburg and Plauen (Germany) web press manufacturer, he now lives permanently in Dubai.

Dubai has become the trading and media hub of the Middle East and a major tourist destination, thanks above all to clever management on the part of Ruler HH Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum who recognised years ago that the future of his country could not be safeguarded by oil alone - particularly in view of the fact that Dubai is not one of the really oil-rich countries of the region.

Only 20% of the one million inhabitants are citizens of Dubai, which is a member of the United Arab Emirates.

The great remainder are foreign workers mainly from Pakistan and India plus a growing number of tourists from Europe and Russia.

That development started over 25 years ago and at the time two publishers shared the market for English-language daily newspapers and have been fierce competitors to this day.

One is the Gulf News, which belongs to Al Nisr Publishing and has a daily circulation of 90,000.

The other is the Khaleej Times published by the Galadari Brothers group of companies with around 70, 000 copies daily.

Both use the same MAN Cromoman printing technology.

The presses are coldset and heatset hybrid machines produced at the company's Plauen factory.

The Gulf News has been a MAN Roland house since 1992 and at first ran a Cromoset.

The present machine configuration was installed in 1999.

The Khaleej Times started production with its Cromoman in 2003 in a new printing plant.

The company's machines include a MAN Roland Polyman commercial web press and a five-colour Roland 700 sheetfed press.

With these presses and a rotary newspaper printing system made up of six parallel arranged Hybrid-Cromoman presses, this publishing house produces a range of newspapers, selected commercial and magazine products.

With an eye on the competition in close pursuit, Gulf News recently gave its paper a facelift with a new and very modern design.

The concept came from Mario Garcia, the renowned newspaper designer from the United States.

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