Hosting the function, Peter Rego, general manager for Heidelberg India, announced the sale of two Masterwork kits — Easymatrix 106FC to TCPL and Easymatrix 106 C/CS to Amber Print Pack.

For TCPL, this will be its second Easymatrix 106FC. The first one was installed two years ago, while for Amber Print Pack it will be its first.

Abbas’ commercial print business, Amber Press serves six states of North India, including Punjab, UP and New Delhi. The new packaging business, Amber Print Pack, is a partnership firm run in association with Mathur.

Amber Press is equipped with multi-colour presses from Heidelberg and Komori, among others, a couple of platesetters and a complete post-press unit. This year, Abbas added brand new Komori multicolour presses, including a six-colour coater, a Kodak CTP along with allied machinery for the packaging unit.

Speaking to PrintWeek India, Abbas of Amber said, “In the past two-three months, we have been witnessing a decline of print jobs from the private players, though the flow of jobs from the government has been steady. This led us to think about diversifying our business into the packaging segment.”

There are comparatively fewer big packaging players in UP and Bihar, and Abbas thought this was the right time to invest in packaging. “There are manufacturing units being set up in UP, which have packaging requirement. Besides, recently, the government has announced a district-based business called ODOP – one district, one project. This means each district will produce a product, like locks, keys, toys, and the likes. Each one of them will need packaging. We are hoping that these businesses will flourish in the years to come, giving rise to ample opportunities in the packaging segment.”

Recently Heidelberg signed an agreement with the Chinese post-press specialist Masterwork Group (Masterwork) under which the latter will obtain an 8.5% stake in the former. The aim was to further improve its market position in the packaging printing segment.

“Since our tie-up, we have re-structured our machines, optimised it, especially the safety standards, the electric parts, the sensors, among others. We use the same supplier that supplies parts to produce Heidelberg’s premium presses. This has guaranteed that the focused is on functions like quick set-up, efficient production, quality and flexibility as in it can be used to produce conventional commercial jobs as well as opens up gates for packaging tasks,” said Michael Gao, sales manager for Masterwork Group.

According to Gao, the Easymatrix 106 CS series is one of the popular kits with 170 installations worldwide since it was launched after the Heidelberg-Masterwork tie-up. Around 10% of the machines are installed in Germany. In India, there are 12 machines installed.

He said, “Considering that we entered the Indian market in 2015, we think this is a good number.”