Cover Story

Engraving
Success
BIG meets up with Mr. Mo’anes Al Mardi, Managing Director, Arabian
Printing & Publishing House and also the Editor-in-Chief of Al Bilad
daily and finds out that behind his jovial persona lies a strategic thinker who
firmly believes in freedom of expression and is ready to take the printing and
publishing business to a completely new level.

A A
look into the evolution of Bahrain’s
print media and one is bound to
come across Arabian Printing &
Publishing House (APPH), a monolith
whose long-standing contribution has made
it an integral part of the industry. The com-
pany’s deep conviction and vision has stimu-
lated the growth within the print media and
has virtually metamorphosed journalism
and consequently the freedom of expression.
Thus, meeting Mo’anes Al Mardi, Manag-
ing Director of APPH, one just doesn’t
understand the dynamics of printing and
publishing business, but one stands to gain
an insight about the actual transformation,
development and maturing of the print me-
dia in the Kingdom.
THE FIRST STEPS
Mo’anes Al Mardi’s journey in printing and
publishing began by observing his vision-
ary father, late Mr. Mahmood Al Mardi
who founded the Gulf Daily News (GDN)
and Akhbar Al Khaleej (AAK), presently
the front running newspapers in Bahrain.
Mo’anes, who says that journalism is in his
genes, recalls that in 1965 his father first
launched an Arabic weekly called – Alad-
waa Alkhaleej with a dream of publishing
a daily some day.
Explains Mo’anes, “Unfortunately my fa-
ther couldn’t sustain running Aladwaa due
to financial constraints. However, he man-
aged to gather five to six friends together
and the first issue of AAK came into be-
ing in 1976. After two years, in 1978, he
launched the GDN. Between the weekly
and dailies he established his own printing
press – APPH – which, as you can see, has
grown tremendously. We owe the success of
APPH entirely to him”
“As far as I am concerned I have been
associated very closely to journalism and
printing and publishing from a very young

44 march 2009 B.I.G ...Read more in BIG MARCH 2009 Issue