At the end of April, KBA Asia Pacific invited its friends and customers from the Malaysian print industry to a special open house at the new company premises in the Sunway Damansara Technology Park on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur. More than 160 commercial and packaging printers from all over the country accepted the invitation to "Come & taste KBA's chili padi". Among the highlights of the event were practical demonstrations on a six-colour KBA Rapida 75 with inline coat-ing. The print results on substrates ranging from 128 to 300 g/m2 pa-raded an absolutely striking quality, also thanks to the use of Kodak Staccato screening.

The title of the open house chosen by KBA Asia Pacific was a reference to the small but fiery chili which is extremely popular in Malaysia and thus displays a number of parallels to the KBA Rapida 75 in the figura-tive sense. The fast plate changes and short makeready times of this B2 press for formats up to 53 x 75 cm were certainly two of the hot ingredi-ents for the Malaysian print professionals. In his commentary of the print jobs, KBA sales manager Rex Teng also drew special attention to the simple handling, flexibility and economic efficiency of the Rapida 75, whose status as the space and energy-saving champion in the B2 for-mat class was recently confirmed by the readings of a live electricity meter at IPEX in Birmingham.

Malaysia – an important growth market for KBA
In his welcoming address, Stefan Segger, managing director of KBA Asia Pacific, interpreted the unexpectedly strong turnout as an expres-sion of the excellent market standing which Rapida sheetfed offset presses have built up in the growth region Malaysia. The event was to be seen as a continuation of the company's vigorous market strategy, following up the well-attended road shows organised in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta in November 2009. The theory was now to be translated into practice with the Rapida 75.

Malaysia is a traditionally important market for KBA. It is only a couple of weeks, for example, since Linocraft Printers in Johor Bahru signed up for a long Rapida 185 which will become the largest sheetfed offset press in Southeast Asia. The country's leading daily newspaper, The New Straits Times, is also printed on KBA Commander press lines. Alongside the distinct growth in the sales of new Rapida presses for all format classes, the recent years have seen fast-expanding business with used equipment. The flexible and robust Rapida presses are in the meantime in equally great demand on the second-hand market.

Throughout the region, the first signs of a sustainable investment up-swing are emerging. Besides Malaysia, that applies particularly to Indo-nesia. In the first four months of 2010, KBA Asia Pacific has already topped the turnover figures for the whole of the crisis year 2009.

Spicy get-together
Following the live demonstrations of the KBA Rapida 75, which were accompanied by sophisticated lighting effects, the guests were able to enjoy an excellent barbecue – with spicy chili padi, of course – as the perfect setting in which to talk shop. Stefan Segger and his team of spe-cialists from Malaysia and Singapore, together with their colleagues from KBA-Grafitec in the Czech Republic, were delighted with the success of the open house. The KBA Rapida 75-6+L on show will be going into production shortly at Dragon Hitech Printing Shd. Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur.