Print China 2011 marks striking success
Organised by Print China Show Company Limited, the second International Printing Technology Exhibition of China (Guangdong) - Print China 2011 (April 09-13) - concluded marking striking success, under the theme ‘Green, Efficient and Digitisation’, by attracting over 1,40,000 visitors. With presence of 1,261 exhibitors (a 20.4 percent increase) from 18 countries and regions, the show occupied 1,20,000 sq m area (a 50 percent increase), covering most of halls of the Guangdong Modern International Exhibition Center. Each of these three indexes reached historical high making it the largest international printing exhibition in China, and the second largest in the world. 
At Print China 2011, there were ten dedicated halls, including integrated brand hall, printing equipment hall, digital and CtP hall, corrugated paper and colour box hall, inkjet printing hall, screen printing hall, label and printing material hall, fine presswork and printing education hall, related to books and periodicals, packaging, commerce, advertisement, textiles, electro circuit, works of art, office printing and so on.
In the opening speech, Demao Wang, chairman, organising committee of Print China 2011, conveyed, “This exhibition is being held as the international economy recovers from the world financial crisis. China has returned to its normal development track and the printing industry in China has been on an upward trend during the past three years. The show is a grand gathering of the international printing industry, presenting the new ideas of printing, the new directions of printing technology development and the new fields of printing applications.”
Apart from hundreds of Chinese manufacturers and suppliers, the presence of almost all international industry majors such as Agfa, Dainippon Screen, Canon, Heidelberg, HP, KBA, Kodak, Komori, manroland, and Pitney Bowes, etc made the show ‘must visit’ for visitors from across the world. Agfa focused on ‘sustainability’, and KBA was present with ‘Proven Green Printing’ banner.
Kodak showcased its broad portfolio of solutions that help printers and marketers capture new business opportunities by improving efficiencies and adding innovative new services. The highlight of the Kodak booth was the Kodak Prosper 1000, a monochrome digital inkjet press that is based on Kodak Stream inkjet technology and delivers offset-class quality. Ideal for digital book printing applications, the Prosper 1000 offers one-over-one perfecting, with a print width of up to 24.5 inches (62.2 cm) at speeds of up to 650 feet per minute (200 mpm). It has a duty cycle of 120 million A4 letter pages a month, and can support run lengths of up to 7,000 copies. Among other solutions on display at the show were a Kodak Magnus 800 platesetter, NX digital flexographic system, Prinergy workflow, Trillian SP thermal plates. Also at the show, in Wilson booth Hall 3-I-002, visitors could see the Kodak NexPress SE3000 digital production colour press featuring Print Genius configured with a Horizon perfect-binder. With the Kodak NexPress fifth imaging unit solutions, users can produce dimensional raised print, match spot colours, add watermarking or a protective coating, print MICR jobs, and create high-impact glossing on the widest range of more than 600 substrates are supported.
Emphasizing its strong, local presence in China and press technology ideally suited to the requirements of printers and publishers throughout Asia, Goss International presented unique web offset innovations that can improve productivity while lowering waste, costs and the environmental impact of printing. A single-width, one-around Goss Magnum newspaper press tower was demonstrated at the show, and new features such as advanced folding capabilities, improved tension control for multiple web leads, modified unit cooling controls, digital workflow management with remote diagnostics and optional three-form inking were unveiled. Manufactured at the Goss International facility in Shanghai, the Magnum press offers the versatility of a single width, one around press format with speeds that approach double width presses. Goss International highlighted its full portfolio of presses manufactured throughout the world and the best-selling products chosen by commercial printers and newspaper publishers throughout Asia. These include the Newsliner, Uniliner, Universal and Community SSC newspaper models as well as M-600, M-500 and Sunday commercial web presses. The other products demonstrated under the Shanghai Electric banner included a sheetfed offset press, an automatic die cutting machine with stripping unit, a saddlestitcher, a perfect binding line and a paper cutting system.
manroland with its widespread product range has successfully positioned itself as the expert for offering solutions for the customers. The Sheetfed Division sold more than 300 printing and coating units.
For Heidelberg, the success was underlined by the total of more than 4,500 customer inquiries resulting from the event. The Heidelberg presentation at its 2,500 square meter booth under the motto HEI Performance - HEI Value demonstrated how print shops with state-of-the-art technologies and services can benefit from cost-effective and eco-friendly print production. The Speedmaster CX 102, which was making its debut on the Chinese market, proved a visitor magnet at the company’s stand. By the end of the event, orders had been placed for more than 40 presses with a total of over 200 printing units. Besides, visitors to the Heidelberg trade show booth saw the company’s solutions for market trends such as efficient packaging production, differentiation through creative print applications, short-run colour printing, web-to-print, and green printing. More than 1,000 visitors experienced the demonstration of the new business model web-to-print. Comprehensive workflow integration, the Saphira range of consumables from Heidelberg, and a wide variety of training and consultancy services rounded off the portfolio. “Alongside drupa in Düsseldorf, Print China has become the most important trade show for us worldwide. It offers us the opportunity to further extend our market leadership in China,” commented Bernhard Schreier, CEO of Heidelberg. China is currently enjoying the highest growth rates in the global print media industry and is now the largest single market for Heidelberg.
Another prominent exhibitor, HP reinforced its leadership in the graphics arts segment at Print China 2011 by unveiling its expanded portfolio of industry-leading products, segmented market approach and end-to-end digital print solutions that enable regional print service providers (PSPs) to best meet the demands of their customers and capture new business opportunities. PSP customers are constantly looking at ways to achieve high return on their marketing investment by streamlining processes, increasing efficiency and better managing content. HP’s Graphic Solutions Business recognizes these trends and helps PSPs meet these demands. Spanning virtually every form of printed output – from publishing, direct mails, transpromo to labels – HP’s Graphics Solutions portfolio serves the diverse needs of the graphics arts community with consistently outstanding output, a complete workflow offering, dependable partner solutions and an expansive selection of ink and media options. At Print China, along with other products, visitors were also able to preview various innovative digital printing solutions that HP is making available to Asia Pacific customers, including the HP Indigo W7200 digital press, HP Indigo WS6000, HP Indigo 7500, HP Indigo 5500 and HP Indigo 355 digital press.
APL Machinery Pvt Ltd becomes operational in China
Known for their offline UV coaters and other printing machines in India and overseas as well, Faridabad-based APL Machinery Pvt Ltd has now become operational in China. The company (promoted as ‘Panther Printing Machinery Company’) effectively participated in Print China 2011 to discover new markets. The services they will now offer from China include: purchase of machines/consumables from China, quality inspection of machines/consumables before dispatch, customer clearance & transport, installation of machines, and spare parts as well as after sales services.
Indian Night at PRINT CHINA 2011
- manroland hosts for Indian print community
At the PRINT CHINA 2011, manroland hosted an Indian Night where several leading web, commercial and packaging printers from the Indian printing fraternity graced the occasion. manroland India also closed several sheetfed press deals at the exhibition.
Addressing the gathering and sharing several interesting trends on the global printing industry, Dr Markus Rall, member of the executive board, sheetfed printing systems, manroland AG highlighted the remarkable growth of packaging printing in the Asian market and the positive outlook for India driven by strong growth in the retail, hospitality and pharmaceutical sectors. In this increasingly competitive sector, success will be defined through innovation and differentiation in quality, new and innovative product lines and cost effective manufacturing, while staying ahead of competition in technology upgradation.
manroland offers FutureProof – the flexibility to plan future investments for upgrades thus enabling printers to adapt ever changing market conditions easily. With futureproof, customers who purchase new manroland sheetfed offset press esreceive an assurance that they can add retrofits within five years and thus respond to changes in demand. To reduce investment costs for upgrades such as Inline Coating, Inline Foilingat a later time, with futureproof all necessary preparation for a wide range of additional equipment can be integrated in a press specified today.
Dr Markus also highlighted recent technology innovations at manroland such as ROLAND DirectDrive – the short run champion which reduces makeready time by up to 60 percent through simultaneous plate change and cylinder wash cycles. The ROLAND InlineFoiler Prindor produces brilliant metallic effects through inline application of cold foil, which has been a raging success story in commercial, packaging and label printing with over 90 installations across the globe.
Several interesting facts about the Indian printing industry were presented by Anil Bhatia, managing director, manroland India. The company plans to double its service strength in India by July 2011, currently operational from over six locations in the country. He also announced the company’s plans to enhance and expand current local stock of spare parts at the moment worth more than two million Euros in India. Customized training programmes for customer’s print operators and technicians were successfully launched in January this year. printadvice – manroland’s consulting services offers international benchmarking and press efficiency programmes have been rolled out for Indian printers. The company also announced to enter the used presses segment in India including sales, installation, service and spare part support. printcom - manrolands’ range of certified consumables will also be launched in the Indian market this year.
On the occasion, special press demonstrations (with English language presentations) were also organized for Indian printers on the R706 LV press displayed at the manroland booth in Hall 3 at PRINT CHINA.
