The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region presents a world of new opportunities for the print market.
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This is according to the latest research from Smithers Pira, which will be presented at the upcoming Gulf Print and Pack show on March 26th-29th 2017 in Dubai.
The Future of Printing in the Middle East and North Africa to 2022 shows the region as a whole is set to expand from a value of $26.8 billion in 2017 at an annual rate of 8.7 per cent to pass $40 billion in 2022. This contrasts with a mean annual growth of 2.4 per cent for 2012-2017 reflecting the opening of until now underdeveloped countries to the full range of modern print products and technologies.
This expansion is occurring against a more static backdrop for the print industry generally, with annual global growth pegged at a more subdued two per cent, as traditional segments decline. Therefore, the MENA region can be seen as an attractive strategic growth target for international print equipment and consumable suppliers.
We are seeing global print firms opening new offices and reporting sales to the region, and local print service providers diversifying their product offering as they rapidly adopt new technologies," said Steve Hill, Smithers Pira’s Operations Director EMEA. "Of course, selling effectively into MENA has some unique challenges but our research shows the demand is and will be there; and there are specific opportunities now, like the opening up of the post-sanctions Iranian market, and transition economies moving towards food sold in supermarkets in locally-printed packaging."