Liaoning Basch showcases digital press developments

On July 30, 2016, Liaoning Basch held a digital print open house at north China’s most important industrial printing hub, Yingkou city in Liaoning Province. More than 80 representatives of the label printing industry attended.

Liaoning Basch is owned by the Basch Group and develops and manufactures platemaking machines and digital presses. ‘There is still huge potential in the Chinese label and packaging market,’ said the company’s president Cheng Kangying. ‘The average PSA label consumption in Europe and America is ten times that in China. Under the circumstances of the present economic downturn, label printing maintains a growth rate of nearly 10 percent. This means the potential for long job runs in flexo is still infinite, while digital printing has made excellent advances in short run printing, particularly against waterless offset.’

Lu Chang’an, vice president of PEIAC, the Printing Equipment Industries Association of China, praised the company’s technical prowess: ‘Digital printing is the future and Basch obtained recognition from its international counterparts at the recent drupa show. I hope their digital presses will successfully enter the label and packaging market following the lead of their president, Cheng Kangying, and hopefully Basch will become the leading Chinese digital printing enterprise in the near future.’

Established in February 1990, Basch Group now owns subsidiaries including Beijing Basch, Beijing Basch Smart Card, Shanghai Basch Printing Equipment Int’l Trading, and Shanghai Basch New Materials Technology.

It has two manufacturing bases, in Shanghai and Yinkou, for print rollers and digital label printing equipment. The product lines include pre-press equipment and consumables and RFID label and tag equipment.

Vice president Yang Xiaoming gave detailed information about the performance and applications of the company’s Panthera series digital presses. The Panthera 3322C color inkjet label press uses Memjet inkjet technology for 4-color printing at a resolution of 1600 DPI and printing speed of 16m/min, with a maximum print width of 320mm. The press can be configured with optional UV varnishing units and will handle pressure-sensitive rolls, both paper and film as well as metallic.

The Panthera 3322CW is based on the Panthera 3322C but with an additional white ink unit, which is still under development. Both machines require materials to be pre-coated.

‘At present, one restrictive factor in the popularity of digital printing is the high cost,’ said Yang Xiaoming. ‘But the Basch digital label press adopts the Memjet Waterfall system using water-based ink where the cost is comparatively low.’ He broke down the cost per label in detail for attendees using samples printed by the Panthera 3322C.

‘Besides, water-based ink produces no poison or pollutants.’

In addition, Basch showed a Panthera 3326V varnish press equipped with an UV LED drying system.

Long Sihai, sales manager of Basch’s partner, Wenzhou RhyGuan Machinery, introduced the RhyGuan range of digital finishing machines. The RhyGuan IDC-DL330 combines both mechanical and laser die-cutting, and was first seen at Labelexpo Europe and Labelexpo Asia in 2015.

Liu Xuezhi, general manager of Liaoning Hans-Gronhi Graphic Technology, said there were more than 40 exhibitors supplying roll-to-roll digital presses at drupa 2016, and laser die-cutting is ‘increasingly recognized as the most perfectly matched post-processing method for digital printing.’

Basch Oversea Student Scholarships

Following the machine demos, Basch invited Luo Xueke, president, and Xu Wencai, vice president of the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, to a signing ceremony for the Basch Oversea Student Scholarships.

Basch Group first set up print scholarships at the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication in 1993. Now, president Cheng Kangying and vice president Yang Xiaoming have committed the Basch Group to the further cultivation of printing talent by donating funds to set up the Overseas Student Scholarships.

‘The purpose is to comply with the national ‘One belt, one road’ policy, to actively push forward communications among printing industrial professionals at home and aboard, especially providing the chance for students in Asia, Africa and Latin America to study in China,’ said Luo Xueke. ‘Mr Cheng Kangying and Mr Yang Xiaoming have made huge contributions to the Chinese printing industry. Hopefully we can take them as examples to push Chinese high-end printing machinery and equipment, with independent intellectual property rights, to the international market.’