Some publication houses, print media outlets stop functioning

KABUL (Pajhwok): In the past two months, 35 printing companies and some print media outlets have stopped functioning, an official said on Tuesday.

Ahmad Fardin Ziae, head of the State-run General Publication House, told Pajhwok Afghan News 250 publication houses had been provided license in capital Kabul with most of them belonging to private sector.

He, however, said in the past two months, as a result of regime change and economic problems, 35 publication houses have stopped functioning.

He urged introducing a mechanism through which the problems of these publication houses are resolved and they could resume their activities.

Referring to the functioning of state-run publication house, he said: “Currently the demand has declined and we have machinery with maximum capacity. We don’t have raw materials, our country rely on import which has drastically declined.”

He said the printing materials of a number of state institutions has stopped and they relied over online services.

Ziae said: “We strive to resume our printing activities in the coming week which has a direct connection with the government. When markets gets opened, private sector start pouring money and ports resume activities and imports related problems are resolved the problems of printing press get settled as well.”

Safiullah Mullahkhel, the printing house in-charge of Da Afghanistan Times, said they lunched functioning back in 2009 but from the past two months they have no activities and the printing facility is closed.

We have two newspapers — The Afghanistan Times and Dunya Daily — each was published in Pashto, Dari and English and we a publication house by the name of Afghanistan Times.

He said before the Taliban take over daily 100,000 pages were printed but now nothing is printed. Twenty persons have worked in the printing press most of them lost their jobs.

Every institution has a policy through which they have some cash reserve. “We have some cash reserve that can help us for three to four months and then we will run out of cash completely.”

He asked the government to provide support to vulnerable printing houses to avoid their collapse.

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