Eastern Chinese publisher Xuzhou Press Media is moving into semicommercial printing with a KBA Comet, 11 years after installing a similar press for its newspapers.

China’s semicommercial sector is flourishing and Xuzhou target further growth with the new single-tower heatset press. It will come on stream early next year in the rapidly expanding industrial city in the north of Jiangsu province, eastern China.

The press is the group’s second Comet press following commissioning in 2001 of a two-tower press with four reelstands and two folders.

In addition to its own regional title, the top-selling ‘Xuzhou Daily’, the group prints other titles including the ‘People’s Daily’ and ‘Xinhua Daily’.

Xuzhou, with a population of ten million, is a traffic hub linked by motorway and rail to other big cities including Shanghai, and also has a domestic airport.

Xuzhou Daily president Liu Ming says the group’s choice of press was informed by experience of quality, performance and service: “When we set out to address the mounting demand for semicommercials we did a lot of market research and came to the conclusion that KBA offered the best technology for our purposes.

“The heatset Comet will enable our printing plant to handle new production specs.”

Pictured: An impression of the new press with one reelstand, printing tower, folder and dryer