It is planned to invest 190 million rubles in the modernization of the regional printing house

The authorities of the Omsk region are modernizing the oldest printing house in the region - the state enterprise Omsk Regional Printing House. To do this, officials will purchase German printing equipment worth 190 million rubles, which, according to their calculations, will make the enterprise competitive. The authorities intend to borrow funds and recoup the investment in seven years. Competitors in the printing market called the regional government’s plans a utopia, since the print media market is “gradually dying out.”

The intention to modernize the state-owned enterprise Omsk Regional Printing House was announced at a meeting of the regional government on Wednesday by the head of the Main Directorate for Press, Television and Radio Broadcasting and Mass Communications (GUPTR) of the Omsk Region, Andrei Tkachuk. “At one time, the Omsk Printing House was lost (it is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings. - Kommersant). We want to revive the “House of Printing” on the basis of the regional printing house,” Mr. Tkachuk told members of the regional government, delivering a report on the development of state media in the region.

The Omsk regional printing house is located in the building of the former Serebryakov tobacco factory built in 1901, at the intersection of the street. Lermontov and Decembrists. The printing house prints regional newspapers of municipalities of the Omsk region, produces booklets, books, and certificates. According to regional officials, the enterprise “operates break-even and does not receive subsidies from the budget.” The building was included in the privatization program of the current year. In June, the new regional government (the term of office of the former governor of the Omsk region, Leonid Polezhaev, expired on May 30) excluded the printing house from the privatization plan due to its historical value.

After the meeting, Andrei Tkachuk told Kommersant in more detail about plans to modernize the regional printing house. “In the new extension to the building, we want to organize a powerful printing house that would take contracts from our media and make them cheaper. In the historical part of the building we want to house the editorial offices of regional publications for zero or symbolic rent. Also, attract other editorial offices of print media there,” said Mr. Tkachuk.

Now regional officials are developing a business plan for modernizing the printing house. According to it, the authorities intend to issue a budget or bank loan for the purchase of new printing equipment. “In particular, we are considering a machine that can produce more products than all the machines in the city of Omsk. This is German equipment worth 190 million rubles. or Indian for 70-80 million rubles. Then Omsk residents won’t go to Novosibirsk to print, and perhaps Tyumen publications will be lured to us,” says the head of the State Administration for Trade and Industry. The new equipment, according to Andrei Tkachuk, will allow the printing house to independently earn almost 50 million rubles needed to repair the building, which is in disrepair. According to officials, it will be possible to recoup the investment no sooner than in seven years.

Yesterday it was impossible to get a comment from the head of the Omsk regional printing house, Vladimir Grechushnikov: the director was not there.

Local players in the printing market call the idea of regional authorities to modernize the regional printing house a utopia. “The print media market is gradually dying out, publications are printed in scanty quantities. The computer age is doing its job. Therefore, I consider investing in the purchase of foreign equipment futile; this money is irrevocable. Where will orders come from if Sovetskaya Siberia from Novosibirsk operates with a profitability of 1% only for the client to start working with them. So this is SovSibir, which no one can compete with,” said Bogdan Vigel, director of Polygraphy Plus LLC (publishes about 30 federal, city and regional media in Omsk). The entrepreneur himself, due to a sharp drop in orders for printed media, began to develop another direction of printing - producing bags, paper bags and sachets.

Analysts confirm that the print media market is oversaturated. “The print media segment continues to have the lowest growth rates in media advertising fees - about 3% in the first quarter of 2012 and about 6% last year. Newspapers, magazines and other periodicals now collect less advertising than the Internet segment: 40.4 billion rubles. against 41.8 billion rubles. last year, respectively,” Maxim Klyagin, an analyst at Finam Management, cites the data.

At the Sovetskaya Siberia Publishing House OJSC, the plans of the Omsk residents do not cause concern. “Now SovSibir has very few clients from Omsk left in comparison with, say, a year and a half ago,” the commercial department of the publishing house explained to Kommersant. According to an unnamed department manager, the main reason for the outflow of out-of-town clients is the high cost of delivery. To bring finished products from Novosibirsk to Omsk, you need to pay about 12 thousand rubles for a GAZelle truck, a representative of the publishing house calculated.

Regional officials intend to prepare the final business plan for modernizing the printing house by the end of August.

Anastasia Mitkovskaya, Omsk; Yuri Belov, Novosibirsk

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