A new BD4 million ($10.67 million) purpose-built premises of the Oriental Printing Group – a leading Bahrain-based printing company – looks set to open by the end of February in the Hidd Industrial area, following the pouring of the last concrete on the main building early last month.

The new facility comprises a four-storey main administration building and two state-of-the-art printing plants, with a total built-up area of 19,000 sq m on a 21,500 sq m plot.
“We will be one of the first in the Middle East to implement state-of the art printing technology such as Job Definition Format (JDF) systems in our production methods at this new plant. We have imported a wide range of exclusive printing and finishing machinery from Man Roland and Kolbus of Germany as well as from the Dutch company, Drent Goebel. A number of German consultants were also involved in this project,” says Majeed Issa Al Zeera, president of Oriental Printing Group.
“The main building will house all the corporate offices, sales administration area, a visitors’ reception area, meeting rooms, coffee lounge among other facilities.
“This complex is divided into two areas - one purely for security printing products and the other for commercial printing such as multi-colour printing jobs for magazines, calendars and books and other such print matter. The area will consist of a pre-press area, warehouse, printing and finishing area, special-purpose warehouse area, specialised storage area, a utility block comprising of waste collection and maintenance facilities as well as a loading and unloading bay with a weigh-bridge for vehicles,” he adds.
The main contractor on the project is Saleh Abdullah Kameshki (SKC) Contracting and Trading, which has a number of impressive commercial and residential building projects to its credit in Bahrain, while Mohamed Salahuddin Consulting Engineering Bureau (MSCEB), a full-service, interdisciplinary architecture, engineering, and design firm, is the consultant and architect.
“Construction work, which started in September 2006, is progressing on schedule, and we expect the handover to take place soon. The printing and finishing machinery imported from Germany will be installed as required, with this new factory soon becoming the company’s largest production centre in Bahrain,” points out Salahuddin S Kameshki, director of SKC Contracting and Trading Company.
“We have used a unique state-of-the-art HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) system known as displacement flow diffusers in this new facility as advised by our German consultants. In this system, the circulation of air in a particular area is more uniform, which is extremely important where there are ongoing printing jobs and other such work processes, as it helps in keeping the paper, ink and other material to the required quality parameters in a factory. It is also more comfortable for the workers in the factory,” says U K Menon, project manager of MSCEB.
Established in 1952, the Oriental Printing Group has expanded over the years and now offers comprehensive printing services through production centres in Manama, Sitra and Mina Salman in Bahrain, a production unit at Jebel Ali in Dubai, as well as an office in London. Besides the Gulf, the company has also made inroads into the markets of some of the Middle Eastern, African and CIS countries as well as European markets. Around 70 per cent of the group's production is exported to the International markets.