Papermaking giant Stora Enso is selling its German newsprint mill, with the new owners to convert it to containerboard, taking 310,000 tonnes of newsprint out of the rapidly declining market.

Print companies will not be among the recipients of the Victorian government's $250m support package, as business braces for the state's much maligned Covid lockdown strategy to be extended.

A convergence of adverse global forces mean printers, packagers and wide format operations will be slugged with higher costs for their paper, board and media from 1 July, with prices set to rise across the board.

Print businesses facing the latest Covid lockdown in Victoria will essentially be subject to the same rules as the previous time, which means they are free to carry on printing.

Amazon has rocked the local book world by building an on-demand Australian book printing centre, sending shockwaves through printers in the small publisher and self publishing book sectors, as the behemoth seeks to hoover up the market.

Epson globally has joined forces with National Geographic to promote the protection of the world’s permafrost – the frozen ground beneath the polar regions of the earth – in its newly launched Turn Down the Heat campaign.

The Real Media Collective is launching a webinar series, Power of Print, starting in June and running through to August, aiming to enable the industry to build strong sales and business skills.

A panel of Australian printers presented to the world at Dscoop, considering the challenges and opportunities of the post-Covid world, on the opening day of the global online HP Indigo users event.

HP Indigo user conference Dscoop is running this week, with dozens of seminars, workshops and keynotes taking place in the global virtual event, with participants given a tour of Clarke Murphy Print's factory.

With mental health emerging a beneficiary of the government’s latest budget review, it was timely that it too was the focus of the Women in Print Breakfast Series currently being held around the country. Women in the Print21 team attended the Sydney event.

Forest growth across the world is gathering pace, making a nonsense of claims by environmentalists that print and paper is destroying the world’s trees.

The government went big on the 2021 budget, with print businesses among those who will benefit from the treasurer’s $75bn spend his way to recovery strategy.

Industry reaction to Josh Frydenberg’s 2021 budget was mixed, with some disappointment and some encouragement drawn from the pump priming announcements.

Next week’s Women in Print breakfast in Melbourne has already sold out, and other venues are getting close, prompting the organiser to encourage women to book up fast as sellouts are expected everywhere.

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg is promising a business boosting budget on Tuesday, with printers looking to him to make good on that aim, as the Australian economy hits a growth trajectory.

EXCLUSIVE: The major newspaper print site at North Richmond, once the jewel in the Rural Press crown, and later a major Fairfax plant, is closing, with owner ACM telling staff no other alternative is viable.