Despite the global financial and economic crisis, which has by all means also had its impact in the Far East, this year's China Print trade fair in Beijing proved an outstanding success for KBA. The 900 m² KBA stand was the largest which has ever been booked for an exhibition in China and was in many details reminiscent of drupa 2008. 

The KBA brand name was thus instantly recognisable to the over 70,000 fair visitors, and correspondingly large audiences flocked to regular live demonstrations. The presses on show were a five-colour Rapida 75, a Rapida 105 with five printing units, coater and extended delivery, and a four-colour version of the high-tech medium-format Rapida 106. The latter was the only representative of the “18,000 generation” at the fair and thus naturally a major focus of interest for the crowds. Alongside, the Asian market launch of the new KBA Rapida 75, which was first unveiled at drupa last year, was a further glittering highlight. 

Already in the first quarter of this year, KBA China returned new record sales in defiance of the international trend of growth stagnation. But with the additional sales booked at China Print, 2009 could now even prove the most successful year ever for KBA in China. As deposit payments have already been received for the majority of those orders, KBA is also confident that the presses will actually be delivered, contrary to the experiences of the branch in many other cases over the past few months.

Practically the whole format range is represented among the 20 or so orders: From the Rapida 75, via the medium-format series Rapida 105 and 106, through to Rapida 142 (102 x 142 cm) and Rapida 162a (120 x 162 cm) large-format presses. Guangzhou Junlong Paper Products, for example, is to receive a six-colour Rapida 162a with coater and extended delivery in August. A five-colour Rapida 142 is to be delivered to Jiangmen in September, and an essentially identical large-format Rapida has been ordered by Xiantao Huamei Packaging Printing. The bulk of the orders, however, targets the KBA Rapida 105 series, which is extremely popular on the Chinese market. But whereas almost exclusively four and five-colour presses were being requested by users in China just a few years ago, the emphasis has here, too, shifted clearly to presses with a coating tower for inline finishing of the printed products. 
 
A reputation for high-performance technologies for both sheetfed and web presses, paired with maximum customer proximity, is the foundation for KBA's success on the Chinese market. A growing number of users is no longer prepared to make do with anonymous run-of-the-mill products. In China, KBA is a welcome technology leader for the print industry. Even after the end of the fair, contracts were still being signed on the KBA stand, at a time by which full attention had elsewhere already been turned to packing up.