A new Goss Community SSC press has gone on edition at UBP Printing in Kuching City, East Malaysia, where it will print Chinese daily ‘United Daily News’ and the East Malaysian edition of ‘Star Sarawak’. Managing director Sim Yong says the site was under pressure to increase colour pages and print quality: “Despite the world economy, local advertising demands are still increasing here and so too is the potential to gain contract printing work.” UBP Printing is a subsidiary of United Borneo Press Group, based in Sarawak, East Malaysia, and with plants in Kuching, Miri and Sibu employing 300 people. The Community SSC press, commissioned in March 2010, has five four-high printing towers, an SSC folder and six reelstands. This configuration gives the potential for 20-page broadsheet products in full colour or 24-page broadsheets with four pages in two colours using the sixth reelstand. “Our old presses can only manage 12 pages of colour on a 24-page product,” says Yong Liang. “This limits the overall look and feel of our main title the ‘United Daily News’, printed for one group of our highly cosmopolitan population, mainly Chinese, Malay, Iban and Indian.” The diversity of cultures in the region means an abundance of newspaper titles. UBP has already captured a contract to print ‘The Star’, Malaysia’s leading English daily. The collaboration between the publisher and UBP is focused on delivering daily news by 6 am every day at a lower price than previously possible. “We are close to the heart of the Malaysian oil industry, so the wealth generated will always give us new avenues to explore. With the new Community press installed, we will have the high-performance capacity to look for new work,” says Yong Liang. In addition to the new press, UBP Printing is upgrading other facilities at the plant.