China's Astros grows with KBA

Chinese printer Heshan Astros Printing has used KBA sheet-fed offset technology to grow its business, including targeting the country’s expanding packaging market.

Heshan Astros Printing was established by Leo Group in Heshan in the early 1990s, and now operates out of a 666,000 sq m facility.

From 2007 to 2012, the company recorded an average growth rate of around 10 percent, supported  by investments that have totalled more than €235 million (RMB 1.9 billion). Exports have reached some €285 million (RMB 2.53 billion), with Europe, the US and Australia key markets that Astros serves through its own sales offices in Reading (UK), Seattle (US), Antwerp (Belgium) and Milan (Italy).

At the same time, it said the global packaging market has shifted towards Asia, with China set to become the second largest packaging producer in the world.

As an example, Astros highlights how the production value of the Chinese packaging sector has increased from RMB 250 billion in 2003 to RMB 1,200 billion in 2010, corresponding to an annual growth rate of 21 percent.

To cater for this growth, Astros operates a total of eight sheet-fed offset presses from KBA, from a compact Genius 52 UV up to a large format Rapida.

Yang Zemin (pictured, right), president of Leo Paper Group, said: ‘Beside its protection functions, packaging must also be visually appealing to the consumer. Through long-term cooperation with KBA, we have repeatedly been able to incorporate the latest features into our presses, which permit us to offer our customers new, attractive products, and at the same time forms a basis for maximum production efficiency.’

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