WHEN printing company Seng Lee Press received a $500,000 contract from a well-known American publisher last year, it knew it had its hands full.

The company had only three months to print 41,900 copies of school textbooks.

That was in October.

Instead of turning down the publisher, or doing a rush job of printing all 18 titles, Seng Lee's managing director, Mr Richard Tan, 44, decided to rope in his rivals.

He got Grenadier Press, a specialist in colour printing, and joined forces with Pixel Tech, which produced the covers for the books. To bind the books, he approached Wholesome Bookbinding and Bee Chew.

It proved to be a winning strategy - showing that cooperation, rather than competition, was crucial in fighting back against the recession.

Printing companies told my paper that there is still high demand for the output of what had been wrongly perceived as a sunset industry.

Spring Singapore said the print industry exported over $1.6 billion of products to the US, European and Asian markets last year. Demand is expected to remain constant this year.

The industry employed more than 17,000 people in 2007 - almost on par with the chemical industry's 19,600.

Mr Tan said the contract with the American publisher underlined the close relationship among the five companies which are housed under the same roof at the Print Media Hub in Tai Seng.

The show of unity was obvious when 11 out of the hub's 12 printing companies embarked on a study trip to South Korea's Paju Book City last October.

There, they learnt how to lower costs and generate revenue.

Mr Thomas Chua, chairman and managing director of home-grown printing company Teck Wah Industrial Corporation, which was among the 11 companies, said: 'It's about identifying the pockets of opportunities and leveraging on one another's strengths.'

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