Accra, Aug. 12, GNA - Owners of small printing press without the capacity to operate on large scale, have been urged to merge to win contracts from government and other corporate entities.

Mr Kwesi Sam-Woode, Board Chairman of Sam-Woode Limited, publishers of educational books, who made the call, said this would deter government from awarding contracts for printing books meant for educational institutions to foreign companies.

Speaking at the company's 2009 Annual General Meeting in Accra on Thursday, Mr Sam-Woode announced that his company was negotiating with a foreign printing company to establish a state-of-the-art printing press in Ghana by 2011.

He said the company's turnover for 2009 was GH¢2,689,099 as against GH¢2,252,688 recorded in 2008, representing a profit of margin of GH¢436,411.

"Earnings per share is GH¢0.0144 as against GH¢0.0085 for 2008," he added.

The Board Chairman said 2009 was a challenging year due to low local and export demand for manufactured goods and lack of credit to grow businesses due to the delay in payment by the Ministry of Education for books published.

Mr Sam-Woode expressed dissatisfaction about the management's inability to participate in two government tenders due to lack of funds.

"However we were able to complete a co-publishing project on ICT books with a foreign publisher for which we had a good tender," he added.

Mr Sam-Woode expressed appreciation to shareholders and staff of the company for their support to the company even in times of difficulties challenging times.

"Your company is working assiduously to meet new challenges. The year 2010 would be challenging on many fronts but we hope to face them all and achieve success," he said.

The meeting gave consent to the Board of Directors to fix the remuneration of the auditors and declared a dividend of GH¢0.0060 per share for shareholders as against 2008's dividend of GH¢0.0050 per share.