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April 20
First Quarter Print Markets
Printing Industries of America, Inc. (PIA) reported during the first quarter of 1998 the North American economy continued on its recent strong place with the first quarter growth of the U.S. economy estimated at 3% (real growth on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis). However, most forecasters expect some slight reduction in growth later in the year as a result of the Asian economy's financial difficulties. North American print markets mirrored the overall economy with most of the panelists in our quarterly market survey experiencing healthy sales' increases. The pace of sales' increases were off slightly from last yearís first quarter. Printers in our quarterly market survey panel experienced average first quarter sales increases of 5.7% over the first quarter of 1997. While this is a very healthy growth rate, it is off somewhat from the 6.5% pace of last year's first quarter and the 6.8% pace from 1996. Printers in the West experienced the biggest gains (6.9%). Southern printers were next at 5.5% followed by Midwest (5.3%) and the East (5.2%). For more details contact Dorothy Thompson at 703-519-8144. Excerpt from PIA press release.