The Polestar chief executive told the National Association of Paper Merchants' annual dinner last Thursday (28 May) that he would do his "damnedest" to unseat Germany from the top of Europe's print league table.

His forecast has drawn a mixed reaction from the industry. The BPIF has said that UK Print plc is already ahead of Germany, while Pira has forecast the gap to narrow by 2009, but Britain will still be in second place.

BPIF chief executive Michael Johnson quoted figures from European print confederation Intergraf which showed that the UK has already overtaken Germany, putting the UK print industry's turnover at 14.3bn (e21bn), compared to 11.6bn in Germany.

Pira, however, has predicted that Germany will still top the European league table in 2009, although the UK will have closed the gap by around 1.3bn.

Hibbert said that his prediction depended "on the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to read what is happening in Europe", and urged the print and paper associations to lobby government to maintain the UK's liberal labour law.

"The unstoppable trend that Patricia Hewitt is pushing to go more and more towards the European employment legislation model is madness. We have a competitive edge," he said.

"Our associations should be driving the Government to fight tirelessly to keep this edge and not erode it."

Johnson said: "Why is Arvato coming to the UK? Because we've got more flexible working practices."

He added that Partnership at Work had attracted strong interest from European print associations.

"The Germans, Swedes and Dutch want to meet us because they can't even get to discuss this with their unions," said Johnson.

Story by Josh Brooks