Australian newspaper printers should look to the opportunity in Asia, says United Borneo Press chief executive Sim Yong Lian.

“There’s a good market for you and we can still win the fight against digital,” he says.

An accountant who has helped drive UBP’s journey into commercial printing, he listed the region’s hotspots in an address to Australia’s Single Width Users Group in Darwin on Sunday.

For the Borneo company attached to a 70-year-old Chinese-language newspaper, contract work has been key to growth. It prints six Malay dailies and two each in Chinese and English at print centres in each of Borneo’s four main cities – a commitment which sometimes calls for 17 set-ups a day on a single pressline.

UBP now has 115 press units, seven times its capacity of 2007, and more presses are on order. A single-width Magnum is the latest of numerous Goss presses, Sim Yong (pictured) favouring the format for its versatility and ease of maintenance.

A trend from a small number of mass-circulation newspapers to a wider choice of more-focussed titles is especially noticeable in countries where press freedom is more relaxed, he says.

And even in controlled markets such as Vietnam, circulations are gradually rising with increased media freedom. A “middle group” which includes Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, sees moderate growth for Malay papers while those for Chinese are stagnant and English-language titles struggle against competition from digital media.

The “hotspots” are among countries with the most relaxed media laws, including the Philippines, Hong Kong, Mayanmar and Taiwan.

Manila offers “huge potential” as the Philippines American-style political system spawns numerous new newspapers of various political persuasions with its three-year election cycle, although some disappear soon after polls close.

Hong Kong’s hot free newspaper market is in an “age of innocence against the odds” with many titles running 70 per cent advertising content. “Honkies love newspapers,” he says. In Indonesia’s creative environment, titles tailored to special interests – especially youth, sport and even divorce – are thriving, and Sim Yong says the marker is “well worth looking at”.

In Myanmar – the region’s “last frontier” for printed newspapers – opportunities abound. “They can’t afford good machinery, so I see a great opportunity for contract printers,” he says. “It’s a short-run market, but with lots of titles and literacy improving. You’d enjoy it, trust me.

“We can still win the fight against digital, and would be happy to work with you.”

Borneo, he says, is an island where three countries and numerous ethnic groups intersect, and many are finding an environment to live and invest.