It is clear that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is experiencing some difficult political and economic times; but the recovery is expected to begin gradually until 2022, and most segments are showing impressive growth rates.

MENA’s printing market is huge, producing 2.4 trillion A4 prints in 2017 and consuming 13.5 million tonnes of substrate. This will increase to 2.8 trillion A4 prints and 17.9 million tonnes by 2022, with respective year-on-year growth rates of 2.8% and 5.8%. Print revenues in MENA will rise across the same period, from $26.8 billion in 2017 to $40.7 billion by 2022. This represents a year-on-year expansion of 8.7%, reflecting the booming value and greater per unit price of printed products.

This expansion is much higher than the global mean for increases in print revenues, which sits at 0.8% per year for the current decade. Print service providers, and suppliers of equipment and consumables into the MENA region, must negotiate some of the same challenges as are present in the global market, like the availability of electronic media. These are joined by some distinctly regional differences that will impact market conditions.