Consolidation in the printing industry shows no sign of abating in 2017 and business owners need to prepare for the flow-on effects, says industry expert Richard Rasmussen, who has outlined three key points that printers should keep in mind for the year ahead.

Global out-of-home advertising revenues, including digital and traditional printed media, jumped more than six per cent to over $US49 billion in 2016, with Australia leading the way in overall and digital out-of-home (DOOH) ad revenue growth.

Screen Australia released an all-new B1 computer-to plate device featuring a high-definition option capable of resolving up to 700lpi on offset plates. “With the high-resolution options and the right plate and processing environment, offset print quality can reach new levels."

As the internet’s power usage continues to grow exponentially, a major argument for using print instead of e-media is that print has a one-off carbon footprint, writes Laurel Brunner.

Changes are coming to superannuation on 1 July 2017. Important changes include the introduction of a low-income super tax offset (LISTO) and a transfer balance cap, lowering the concessional contributions cap, reducing the Division 293 income threshold and the annual non-concessional cap.

Corporate regulator’s preliminary view is that the merger may substantially lessen competition in the supply of heatset web offset printing.

PMP has been forced to delay its planned merger with IPMG by almost two months to allow the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to take a closer look at the proposed deal.

Sydney’s Dominion Print Group acquired 30-year old commercial print business Graphitype Printing Services from retiring co-owners/directors Dave and Kath Morris. “Nobody’s gone broke so it’s really a good news story for the industry,” says Kelvin Gage, Dominion’s CEO (pictured).

“The Productivity Commission is like a deranged hairdresser insisting their client wears a mullet wig,” says Man Booker Prize-winning Australian author Richard Flanagan. Books Create Australia called on the government to reject the commission’s recommendations on copyright.

Whew! What a year! Filled with surprises and disruption, 2016 is one for the records. In our own small pond of the Australian and New Zealand printing industry it was also a year of radical change. Plenty of crisis but along with that a great fund of hope and ambition to carry us forward towards 2017.

Spicers - formerly PaperlinX – agreed to a plan that it hopes will end a long-running dispute with hybrid shareholders and restore the company’s capital structure. Hybrid-holders would take a 68.3 per cent stake in the company and Spicers chairman Robert Kaye (pictured) would stand down.

The establishment of a duopoly in the commercial printing sector was the biggest story of 2016, according to industry bible IndustryEdge. "The difficulty is that as with all industrial scale rationalisations, there will simply have to be casualties."

When the rooster crows at the break of dawn…“Look out your window, and I’ll be gone,” so goes the Bob Dylan lyric. By the end of January 2017, it will be the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese calendar, possibly a good time for us all to wake anew and face brand new days, writes Andy McCourt.

Jet Technologies has completed its purpose-built climate controlled ink distribution centre at its in plant in Jakarta, where it will feature the 'revolutionary' UV flexo PureTone range from UK-based narrow-web print specialist Pulse Roll Label Products.

Komori president Satoshi Mochida says despite a ‘murkier’ outlook for the ‘less than robust’ world economy, the press giant will continue to push forward in 2017 with initiatives aimed at innovation and transformation.