The equipment will be introduced at Fespa 2005 but both parties are tight lipped on price, size, speed and colour range of the new machinery.

The new system will resolve the quality and productivity issues that are inherent to ink-jet presses for screen printing applications, said Agfa vice-president of Imaging solutions Jan Van Daele.

Agfa European sales manager Dave Gray added: The partnership has made a lot of people sit up. We are both big players and we are linking up for a very good reason.

Thieme product manager for Digital Printing Systems Konrad Vosteen said that the screen printing market is evolving at a rapid pace and up to now imaging technology has failed to offer real-life solutions for screen printers.

The partnership follows Agfas purchase of Belgium ink-jet press developer Dotrix for 4.2m (PrintWeek, 8 January).

by Philip Chadwick