Ottawa, March 29 (IANS): Canada's oldest Chinese printing shop has closed down, bringing to an end its 106 years of history.

The owner of the shop in Vancouver's Chinatown, 81-year-old Hilda Lam, said she closed the business because there was not enough market for the high-end printing the company specialised in, Xinhua reported

She has also planned to retire.

Hilda put the century-old building on the market last year and sold it for C$1.65 million ($1.5 million).

The company was started by her ancestor in Vancouver in 1906 and became a Chinatown staple since then, doing printing for Chinese restaurants all across Canada, in both English and Chinese.

Many of the presses the company owned were antiques and attracted interest from boutique printers across North America.

"All the machines are gone, except for that Linotype over there, that's broken down," Hilda said.

She was not sure what the future holds for the building, which was probably built around the 1910s. "Some Asian guy bought the building," she said.