email

This is the 10th since it started in 1986. Despite only 60% of participants comparing to last TIGAX two years ago, it has more dollar value in items put up for the show and twice as much for the business transactions concluded in that duration. The decrease in the participants indicates retrenchment of the printing industry due to the particularly fierce competition and the short duration of the advantageous edge any new investment can enjoy in Taiwan; people here are much more careful now in new capital spending. The move in the direction of an economic recovery, however, is clear, with more printing in demand; and the Government's big development projects in progress as well as the warming up of the real estate activities.

What is lacking in quantity we have quality's abundance to show for TIGAX04:

CTP--- All major players are here-those who were in DRUPA 04, Germany are also here.Taiwan has the highest concentration of CTP users, even more than that in Japan. Taiwan's United Daily in one order alone purchased 20 sets from Agfa. Every major maker of CTP like Konica, Fuji Film, Agfa, ECRM, etc. and those of related materials and soft wares, including those of JDF of CIP4 for every thing from the beginning to the end of production, the specs, production flow, business, plant administration. The JDF keeps all the detailed information in the MIS for future analysis by the management, like materials uses, labor hours, problems encountered in the process. All applicable soft wares were here too and demonstrated in operation with the 4-Color machine by Shinohara. Mitsubishi and Akiyama were presented by their agents promoting their newest improved equipment.

Color Management System--- CMS manages both hard and soft wares, from input, the scanners, digital cameras, typesetting, inkjet, etc. Here we had Kodak, Fuji Film, X-Rite, Epson, etc. Taiwan locals are now manufacturing CTP processors and are well respected for their quality.

Printing Machines and Peripheral Equipment--- Well presented in the show were local made labeling machines, which have a good worldwide market share. In the field of silk screen printing Taiwan's locals provide the machines and the needed paper, plastic as well as IC, LCD TFT; the UV drying equip produced were once applied in labels, silk screen printing only, are now used in IC chips, etc., as well. And for it's cooling, there are air, water and IR ray which avoid damages from overly heated UV lamp. Hard cover print, carton making machine, paper cutter with or without computer control, patented high speed small printer, etc, etc. Overseas makers were presented and many more locals made up every thing you need to see in printing, small and big.

Computer Managed Printing--- Many locals presented with multi- culture, multi-language soft wares to use in computer management for printing. Taiwan's Internet printings with one-day printing next-day delivery efficiency were presented. China's biggest printing soft ware company, Fan-Cheng, was in many aspects dominate the daily new papers printing process control in Chinese language, from word type, typesetting to printing. Credit card printing has it local entrants too.

Short Cut to View the Show--- Information Gathering
The TIGAX Manual, the Printers Magazine, the TIGAX Express, the Color Chart, and newly published book, Analysis of Drupa04, which is an overall analysis of the show's hard and soft wares exhibited. And many more books and magazines sold by various book vendors on site were where you could get the info in a hurry.
Because of the development of hard wares toward soft wares in the printing industry, it is very important to understand what are the trends, knowing CIP4 is one, getting to know more on the versatility of CTP will also allow better judgment on where are the new business. Thus collection of information is utmost important and TIGAX has made it easy to gather all the info you need.

A Summary of Values in Dollars in the Show--- Total values in the exhibition: US$ 36.67 million; from Taiwan local vendors 47.8%, Japan 28.6%, Belgium 7.6%, Germany 5.5%, USA 4.2%, others 1.7%.