The Spanish economy is currently suffering the effects of the sovereign debt crisis just like many other countries in Southern Europe. Along with many additional commodities, the weak economy is also impacting on the import of printing technology. Before the financial crisis started in 2008 Spain was one of KBA’s strongest markets for sheetfed and web presses. In 2007 over 40 per cent of the sheetfed offset presses exported from the KBA plant in Radebeul, Germany, went to Spain. KBA has a market share of almost 80 per cent in large-format with over 100 Rapida jumbos installed predominantly at packaging and book printing firms. The KBA Rapidas from Saxony are also well positioned in medium format. Ilasa-Graphic under the management of Jesús Herrero since 1992 made a dedicated contribution in terms of customer support to this market success. He has gained immense respect, gratitude and recognition at KBA.

KBA-Lauvic España has also been very successful in the Spanish market for over 20 years distributing KBA web offset presses for commercial and newspaper printers. With more than 20 installations on the continent and various islands Spain has become the world’s largest single market for the single-width KBA Comet newspaper press which was launched in 1995. Big newspaper houses in Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza and other cities print with the Commander and Colora from KBA, and a raft of commercial printers have implemented 16 to 72-page KBA Compactas.

José Antonio Díaz and his team aim to strengthen KBA’s strong position in the Spanish print market with professional customer service. He also plans on pushing forward as far as possible with new applications, such as high-volume digital printing which is also offered by KBA.