It will join existing presses from other German and Japanese suppliers. The highly-automated Rapida 145 will mainly be used for printing packaging and display products, and will strongly support the company‘s growth strategy. 

Founded in 1998, Ningbo Beike Packaging is based in the Zhejiang Province in eastern China. The company focuses on colour packaging printing for the food industry and on paper storage racks used in supermarkets. The company owns three manroland presses and one Mitsubishi press. The new KBA Rapida 145 press will be installed in a new factory established in 2010.

“We did extensive research before purchasing this press. We know that the Rapida 145 was launched at Drupa last year and that it contains brand-new cutting-edge automation. KBA is the market leader in large format and is well known for its state-of-the-art technology”, said Wu Jie, general manager of Ningbo Beike when explaining why he opted for the press. “The Rapida 145 press has the fastest printing speed in its format class on the market. We are also impressed by its low energy consumption, environmentally-friendly functions and the wide range of substrates it can handle. This press will help us to improve the quality of our products and competiveness. With the Rapida 145 we target to increase our sales volume by 50 million Yuan (approx. $8m) annually.” Mr Wu Jie is also looking forward to working with KBA: “This is the first time that we will cooperate with KBA, but will be definitely not the last time,“ he said. “We are honoured to be the first Chinese user of the Rapida 145 press, which meets our production needs in terms of speed, efficiency, quality and energy saving.”

The city of Ningbo is famous for its home appliance manufacturing industry which is why demand for large-format packaging printing is high. “The large-format Rapida 145 press fits perfectly to our products,” said Wu Jie. It will be mainly used to print packaging, displays and newly-developed storage racks.

Weihai Color Printing Packaging Paper Industry in Qingdao (Shandong province) has also become a new KBA customer with an order for a five-colour Rapida 145 press with coater. In addition, Tangshan Sanli in Tangshan, also a packaging printer, decided on a Rapida 145 four-colour press and joined the KBA family. Furthermore, many book, commercial and packaging printers from China opted for KBA Rapida 75 and Rapida 105 presses in the B2 and B1 format classes.

C&C orders another two Rapida 105

Once again C&C, one of China’s biggest printing groups famous for its children books and also successful in commercial and packaging printing, reaffirmed its longstanding partnership with KBA. C&C became a KBA user in 2006 and 2007 following the delivery of two four-colour Rapida 142 presses. These two large-format presses were joined by a further three six-colour Rapida 105 presses with coaters in 2012. These presses allowed C&C to enter the packaging market successfully. Now, at China Print 2013, this big KBA customer opted for two further five-colour Rapida 105 presses, both with coaters. The new KBA Rapidas will join the company’s existing Rapidas at the facilities in Shanghai and Guangdong. 

Big deal from Taiwan: 6 presses for Chen Yi Paper

The order from Chen Yi Paper Container in Kaohsiung is the biggest single deal for KBA at China Print so far and one of the biggest deals in the Taiwanese sheetfed market ever. This big packaging printer ordered two Rapida 164 six-colour large-format presses with coaters, a five- and a six-colour Rapida 106, both with coater, and a five- and six-colour Rapida 105 also with coaters. Three of the six presses will be shipped in the third quarter 2013 and installed in the existing factory in Taipei. The other three presses will be installed in 2014 in a new plant in Kaohsiung in the south of the Taiwanese island.