Over the past 18 months AF International, specialist supplier of ICT cleaning products, has grown its overseas business by expanding rapidly into the Chinese office product market. As a previously unknown brand in China, AF has had to start from scratch and build a good reputation within this new vitally important emerging market.

A girls’ under-14 football team from Powys, known as “the Crickhowell Panthers”, has netted a £500 sponsorship deal from Océ that helped the team compete in the Regio Haarlem Cup at the Youth Friendship Football Games in the Netherlands.

Pentel has launched a new look website. With easy navigation the Pentel website shows a comprehensive range of products including Pantone and the new environmentally friendly range, Recycology.

A new school built in Liberia has brought hope for a better future to nearly 300 children. Mitsubishi Pencil Company, owner of leading UK rollerball pen brand uni-ball, donated new pens to children attending Children in Crisis’ newly built school.

Market forecast 2008-2012

The UK market for stationery distribution is forecast to increase during much of the five-year forecast period up to 2012, except for a moderate one per cent decline in real terms expected for 2010.

The countdown to the 2007 BOSS Industry Awards has begun! The BOSS Awards is possibly the most recognised and prestigious event of the industry’s calendar.

AF International, the leading supplier of ICT cleaning products, has won the Spicers’ Supplier of the Year Award in League One for 2006/7.

Innovative stationery brand Paperchase has opened its 106th store at Meadowhall shopping centre. The design led stationery store is situated on the upper mall adjacent to Currys Digital and occupies one of the new units that will eventually form part of the new mall, due to open in the autumn.

Congratulations to Aileen Neil, of Moray Office Supplies, who won a Cunard trip on the QEII thanks to Pentel. The prize draw was part of Pentel’s Back to School 2006 promotion.

The Cumberland Pencil Company, the first and now the last remaining pencil manufacturer in the UK, is delighted to announce their move to a new state of the art, purpose-built factory and head office at Lillyhall in Cumbria.

Fellowes®, the leading supplier of business machines and organisational office accessories, has unveiled a series of innovations and improvements to its leading R-Kive® Premium Range including the launch of the markets’ first front opening storage container featuring Fastfold™.

Imation, a leading supplier of removable data storage media, has announced its Nano Flash Drive, one of the smallest, most compact and affordable flash drives, is currently available.

UK SoHo consumers are very discerning: they expect office products to provide speed, flexibility and, importantly, quality. Moreover these consumers need to keep their costs down and, without access to in-house design and IT support, they need solutions that are easy to use.

When it comes to presenting your print work and multimedia materials, you’ll want to impress. Smart thinking company Duraweld can provide you with a touch of magic, transforming even the most ordinary collection of documents into smart, stylish presentations.

Rapesco leads the way in stapling machine and hole punch manufacturing, with innovative and patented engineering designs and passionate styling. This is shown in one of the latest additions to the Rapesco product range with the Premium P20 Shimma Stapler and P30 Punch.

Most people purchase new business cards when their details have changed, but with over five million business card users in the UK, this results in a great deal of wastage and cost-inefficiency, especially for smaller companies.

From jotting down quick notes in meetings to taking pages of dictation, all writers want to be able to write quickly, legibly and without getting writer’s cramp. However, the new STABILO pointVisco rollerball goes further than that, promising an unrivalled writing experience.

What do Spider-man™ and BLU-TACK have in common? They’re both blue and stick to walls and now they’ve come together for a great BLU-TACK on-pack promotion, timed around the October launch of the Spider-man 3™ DVD release.

After 50 years and one billion calculators, Casio still leads the way in mathematical education. To mark the start of the new academic year, Casio is delighted to announce the launch of its new FX-9860GSLIM graphical calculator.

The summer holidays have ended and it’s time to start heading back to school. Fellowes binders and laminators are perfect for helping with children’s creative projects and a great way to preserve special artwork that would otherwise fade or get crumpled. Plus they’re great fun and easy to use too!

Drawing on its extensive expertise in the Education sector, Staedtler is offering a comprehensive range of its strongest school products for the 2007 Back to School promotional period, including such classics as the iconic Noris pencil, 309 handwriting pen, Noris Club colouring pencils and the Mars plastic eraser.

As the “Back to School” season draws closer, innovative and quirky stationery supplies are in more demand than ever. The Bostik Art range offers cool and funky school supplies that will put stockists “top-of-the-class” in the run-up to term time.

Cover Clear® is a protective, self adhesive book covering film which is ideal for protecting and prolonging the life span of books, maps, posters, photographs and other documents.

The eighth edition of the Hong Kong International Stationery Fair, scheduled from January 7th to 10th 2008 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, brings what is best and most dynamic in the global stationery market.

There is no stopping the success of the Hong Kong International Stationery Fair, as proven by the response from both exhibitors and visitors at last January’s show. Now in its seventh year, exhibitors continue to praise the consistent quality of this fair and its buyers.

Leading stationery manufacturer BIC® is introducing a limited edition version of its BIC Select range for Christmas. The contemporary and stylish range of trendy fountain pens, ballpoint pens, roller ball pens and mechanical pencils has been given a sleek new look.

Responding to customer demand, Mitsubishi Pencil Company, owner of leading rollerball brand uni-ball, has extended two signature lines by adding an assortment of colours in order to help boost Christmas sales.