Russian printing houses may shut down due to a shortage of western equipment

Top managers of printing houses told Vedomosti that their companies were facing a shortage of equipment and spare parts because of the sanctions and the fact that producers from Europe, North America, and Japan were refusing to supply. According to the managers’ estimate, machinery from “unfriendly countries” accounts for about 90% of equipment at printing houses.

Some European companies terminated the contracts of their own accord. Other western producers stopped cooperating with Russian printing houses after the European Commission released the fifth package of sanctions on April 8. They ban imports of flexographic, offset, gravure, and letterpress printing machinery, bookbinding machinery, etc. to Russia.

Spare parts for certain types of equipment are supplied via parallel import channels but this option is not viable for the majority of graphic arts printing machinery. Each printing machine has a serial number. Many of their components are unique and also have a respective catalogue number. This means that the producer can check it, realize that the part will eventually be shipped to Russia, and ban the supply.

Another potential solution is supplying components and new graphic arts printing equipment from India and China. These countries, however, produce only certain types of it.