The Belgian pre-media giant said that the majority of the savings would be achieved through a reduction in sales and general administration costs.

The worldwide savings programme, which is due for completion by December 2010, includes €32m of cost savings in Belgium at the cost of around 300 jobs.

Agfa said that this number would include "the reduction already planned in anticipation of the volume decrease in the production of traditional film products".

Agfa UK managing director Laurence Roberts said that he did not anticipate any "major redundancies" in the UK.

He said: "My costs are already very low and I will try and do any adjustment through early retirement and natural wastage.

"I am constantly looking at my overheads, so this is just a summary of what I do from a management point of view anyway. It is us being prudent."

Agfa will also look to achieve savings on its purchasing costs, in order to protect its gross margins and "strengthen its competitive position".

Roberts added that, while he didn't think the UK was heading for "some vast recession", he thought that growth would probably be quite static next year.

He said: "The great difficulty for the UK printing industry is that the sale of equipment will slow next year as people manage with what they've got. People will be cautious about investing unless they really have to invest."