LOCAL PRINTING COMPANIES SUFFER AMID COVID-19

[Anchor Lead]

Despite the upcoming parliamentary elections in April, local printing companies are suffering from a business blow from the coronavirus outbreak. Standing on the verge of bankruptcy, they are demanding that the bidding system be changed and part of orders placed by the central government be distributed to local businesses.

[Pkg]

​​Printing companies are closed when this should be their busiest time of the year. Every March, they thrive with surging orders for promotional leaflets and brochures, because this is when various performances, festivals, shareholder's meetings are held, and new school semesters start. However, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, nearly all events were canceled or postponed. Even with the upcoming parliamentary elections in April, there is no business boom for local printing firms.

[Soundbite] KIM BYUNG-WOOK(PRINTING COMPANY OWNER) : "The amount of orders is not large, due to a limited number of candidates running in each constituency. Large parties mostly print leaflets in Seoul and then, send them to local party branches. So there is little trickle-down effect for printing firms outside the capital."

These struggling companies are calling on the central government to distribute some of its massive orders to them.

[Soundbite] CHO DAE-JE(BUSAN PRINTERS' COOPERATIVE) : "For orders worth over 50 million won, bidding takes place through a state-run market. It's better to split large orders into smaller ones and issue them to smaller businesses evenly."

In order to overcome the crisis, the printing sector needs loans for management funds.
However, those in the industry emphasize, it's more important to make temporary revisions to the government's bidding system to help printing companies stay in business.