Jiefang Daily Printing Centre in Shanghai is pioneering the use of ‘eco-friendly’ platemaking with China’s first Agfa violet chemistry-free CTP systems. The company has switched its four Polaris XTV platesetters – which produce about 70 per cent of the newspaper’s plates – to Agfa’s N92-VCF plate technology. Buoyed by the efficiency of plate workflow management, Jiefang Daily’s move to full CTP production has already allowed the factory to reduce 50 per cent of its chemical waste, and this will be enhanced by the move to the VCF plate, following a clear trend in China towards taking up more social responsibilities. Upgrading from conventional photopolymer plates turned out to be easy without compromising speed and quality, and Agfa says conversion of the conventional plate processor to a gumming processor went very smoothly, with the configuration intensively tested to ensure that production requirements could be met. General manager of Jiefang Daily Zhang Xiaoming says the N92-VCF is “truly an eco plate”, and reports good imaging resolution, excellent dot reproduction, and improved ink-water balance which helps shorten make-ready time. And he says the plate “perfectly meets” our production requirements in terms of run length and print quality. Jiefang Daily will gradually increase the use of chemistry-free violet plates throughout production. Established in 2000, Jiefang Daily Newspaper Group now includes ‘Jiefang Daily’, ‘Morning Post’, ‘Evening News’, ‘Press Digest’, ‘Shanghai Times’, ‘talent market newspaper’, ‘Real Estate Times’, ‘I Era’, ‘Daily Economic News’, ‘Shanghai Law News’, ‘Shanghai Novel’, ‘New Shanghai Business’, ‘Morning News’ and other newspapers. In all there are 11 newspapers, four magazines, a website and an artistic troupe.