Beijing Daily Group has ordered a three-tower KBA Comet press following a detailed market comparison and an inspection tour in Germany. The press, which will go live mid-2010 printing a free title launched last year for distribution in the Beijing underground, has provision for three more towers and another folder to be added. Beijing Daily Group publishes nine daily newspaper and three magazine titles, among them ‘Journalism and New Writing’, ‘China Campus’ and ‘Beijing CPC Party Monthly’. The newspaper titles have a combined daily circulation of about two million in the Beijing metropolitan area alone. Alongside the ‘Beijing Morning Post’, ‘Beijing Suburbs Daily’, ‘Beijing Business Today’, ‘Beijing Social News’, ‘Capital Construction News’, ‘Beijing Daily Messenger’ and ‘The First’, the group also owns the ‘Beijing Evening News’ and ‘Beijing Daily’, established in 1958 and 1952 respectively. The ‘Beijing Daily’s’ circulation of 400,000 copies per day makes it the capital’s most popular newspaper. In addition to maintaining its own foreign correspondents the ‘Beijing Daily’ co-operates with the ‘China Press and International Daily News’ in North America, the ‘Australian Chinese Times’, ‘China Today’ in Canada and the ‘Europe Times’ and also distributes news items under the name ‘Beijing Today’. The press line will able to handle web widths from 635-880 mm, have a cylinder circumference of 1092 mm and a maximum rated output in straight production of 78,000 cph. It will feature fan-out compensation, automatic ink pumping and blanket washing. A highly automated KF 3 jaw folder will be fed via two stacked formers. The press line will be controlled from three KBA consoles with ink-key presetting software, a RIP interface and a diagnostics PC for remote maintenance. • Pictured after signing the contract in Beijing (seated, left to right) are Walter Zehner, head of KBA’s sales and service organisation in China; Mei Ning Hua, president of Beijing Daily Group; and Li Jun, vice-president of the importing corporation. Looking on are the project teams including Beijing Daily Group printing plant manager Guan Hong Jin (eighth left) and his deputy Jia Fu Dong (on his right), KBA China web press sales managers Andreas Friedrich (behind them) and Wang Hong Feng (third left), and web department manager Han Shao Sheng (fourth left).