Foreign daily newspapers are being printed in China for the first time since the 1949 communist revolution under a deal between an international digital newspaper distributor and a Beijing-based technology group.

Canada-based NewspaperDirect, a provider of newspaper “print-on-demand” services, has hailed its tie-up with China's Founder Group as an “historic agreement” that allows hundreds of its partners to “be in at the ground floor of foreign newspaper distribution in China”.