The sultanate of Oman is one of the few developing countries that have succeeded in realizing, in a short period of time, a considerably high level of economic growth. Oman's economy is based on the free economy concept where competition, free markets and pricing mechanisms prevail. The market economy remains the main focus of Oman's strategy since its modern renaissance and the government encourages and supports private sector enterprises. Oman is now one of the most politically and economically stable countries in the Middle East.

After the Abu Dhabi book fair, at Muscat, the capital of Oman, we decided to visit a printing press in the city. Muscat has about thirty eight printing presses. The biggest presses in Muscat are Mazoon, and Oman Printers, which have about 120 employees each.

Muscat Printing press, a subsidiary of the Al Rawas Group of Companies is one of the leading printing presses in Oman. Located in the heart of the city near the Sultan Qaboos Mosque, it specializes in the production of stationery, brochures, magazines, newsletters, calendars, annual reports, leaflets, posters, promotional literature, labels and text books for the Ministry of Education. They also offer artwork services through their-in-house studio and typesetting department.

We met Mr Rajan Pillai, Deputy Managing Director of the press as well as the advertising and rent a car business belonging to the company, and who has been with the company for twenty years. We also met Yasser Bin Abdullah Al Rawas, Managing Director of the press that was established in 1985 and has grown from seven to fifty five employees. Mr Pillai explained that majority of the staff is Indian and attrition rates are very low since there are no labour unions. However, Mr Rawas said the company was giving a lot of importance to Omanization. Omanization, enacted by the government of Oman in 1988 aimed at replacing expatriate workers with trained Omani personnel. The Sultanate of Oman sets quotas for various industries to reach in terms of the percentage of Omani to foreign workers. Companies that reach the mandated goals are given a "green card", meaning they receive recognition and preferential treatment in their dealings with the government. Several universities have been opened by the Sultanate to train Omani workers.

Mr Pillai took us around the press and said this was one among the few presses in the city to have a range of Heidelberg printing machines since inception. Heidelberg has a service centre in Muscat and he said if they faced any problem with the machines they were sorted out quickly. For prepress there is a Creo Eversmart-pro scanner and a Dolev 450 imagesetter and work stations from Apple and IBM for image retouching and colour correction. The press is also equipped with a Xerox Tektronix 8200, for digital proofing of ripped files for the Creo imagesetter. MPP uses a direct to polyester plate CtP from Technova India that uses the Epson Stylus Pro-7800. Mr Pillai says this is ideal in the local market for single colour jobs, and jobs with two or three spot colours as the cost remains low and is also chemical free. Three years back, MPP installed a 4-colour Heidelberg Printmaster for commercial work and also for printing on envelopes. Another Heidelberg, a GTO 52 single colour is used for numbering and perforation. There are also in addition, a Hiedelberg GTO 46 single colour and SORZ two colour presses. Mr. Pillai is extremely particular about the quality produced for his clients and said that this was also possible because of their use of high quality paper. For postpress there is a fully computerized Polar cutting machine, a folder from Stahl Heidelberg, and a cold lamination machine from Champ in Korea.