Print Belize opens City facility
By all accounts it’s doing the kind of high quality reasonably priced printing that customers have always wanted…but that hasn’t stopped Print Belize’s vocal competitors from crying foul over the way in which the former government printery was privatised. Today the Belmopan based company raised its profile by opening a branch in Belize City and launching its latest book. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods has more.
Lawrence Nicholas, CEO, Print Belize Limited
?We have customers from Belize City, so our goal obviously is to create better access to our customers living in Belize City and the businesses that we do work for so instead of them having to travel to Belmopan to seek our services we come to them.?
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
It?s that kind of good business sense that the chief executive officer at Print Belize Limited, Lawrence Nicholas, says they are using when they decided to establish an office in the old capital. The new branch is situated at twenty-six, twenty-seven Mercy Lane just behind Alliance Bank.
Lawrence Nicholas
?So this way we create an access. They can pick up their jobs here. They come and request their jobs, we send to Belmopan, our van comes to Belize City everyday so the jobs are delivered here or we deliver direct to the customer or whatever the client needs. So we work on the principle basically that the customer is always strike in terms of providing better efficient and cost effective service. So that is our main goal.?
Formerly the Government Printing Department, Print Belize Limited has been strongly criticized by the Belize Printers Association by the way it became a private entity. The association feels that because the sale was not put to tender and that the new company was granted a five year exclusive contract and concessions, it put all other printing businesses at a disadvantage.
Lawrence Nicholas
?I think that Print Belize is not the threat, it is a competitive world. I think the threat to the Printers Association ourselves included is the CARICOM Single Market that comes on stream 2005 whereby you have people who can come from the region and set up printing shops here; we can go and set up printing shops over that side. I think the threat to Belize is obviously the CARICOM Single Market where you have free movement of skill people within the region.?
Today Print Belize Limited also brought to the table their new line of exercise books just in time for the reopening of primary schools on Monday. The book covers feature a variety of artwork by local artists. Nicholas says it is just one example of his company meeting its agenda of improving the industry.
Lawrence Nicholas, CEO, Print Belize Limited
?Despite of what happens within the Press, we work closely with the Pinter?s Association. We still do business with them. Despite of what have been said in the Press, we work with Angelus Press. We buy material from them; we cut paper for Angelus Press. We sharpen blades for BRC. We are a professional company. We don not get involved with all this hooray and different issues that is branded about out there. We work; we need to be judged by the quality of our printing.?
Such as the recently published, ?Sea Lotto?, a novel by Belizean author John Alexander Watler. The book centres around the main character, Mark Ferguson, a first generation Belizean American living in New York who came to Belize on a working vacation that does not go quite as planned.
John Alexander Watler, Author, ?Sea Lotto?
?Like I said we get into various aspects: you go to restaurants, you eat Belizean food, and you travel up to the various tourist places. There is a whole lot in ?Sea Lotto? besides a very exciting plot that keeps on moving. The plot is always driving these characters to do things.?
Nicholas says Print Belize Limited will continue to focus on locally manufactured products. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News Five.
Nicholas says one goal Print Belize has for next year is to reduce the number of printed materials like exercise books that are imported into the country.
