PRO TECHnology became the official Middle East distributor for Marabu inks on 21 January 2024, the Dubai company said in an announcement on its own website. The appointment puts Marabu's UV-curable and UV-LED inkjet inks, screen and pad printing inks, digital inks, primers and protective coatings into local stock in Dubai, rather than leaving regional printers to wait on shipments from Germany.
Marabu is a family-owned ink and coatings manufacturer based in Tamm, Germany, near Stuttgart. PRO TECHnology's own product page describes Marabu as a company that "has been developing printing inks since 1859 and remains a family-owned German manufacturer," producing UV and UV-LED inkjet inks, primers and coatings for buyers across the UAE, the wider Gulf Cooperation Council and the Middle East, backed by local stock and technical support in Dubai.
Marabu's own site, marabu.com, sets out that history independently. It states that Albert Martz opened an "Artist paint and Material" store in Stuttgart in 1859, that the business moved into manufacturing water-based artists' paints in 1870, and that his grandson Eberhard Martz registered the Marabu trademark with the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin in 1909. The company introduced its first UV-curable screen printing ink in 1985 and marked its 150th anniversary in 2009, by which point it employed more than 400 people.
What PRO TECHnology now stocks in Dubai
According to PRO TECHnology's Marabu product page, the range now held locally in Dubai spans several UV and UV-LED families alongside supporting primers and coatings:
- UltraJet UV-curable inks DUV-A, DUV-MF, DUV-CP and DUV-C, plus the DUV-RR line
- LED-curable inks UltraJet DLE-A and DLE-LV
- Screen inks UltraGraph UVSP and UltraStar UVS, and the eco-solvent MaraJet DI-E
- Primers P2, P4 and P5, and the MaraShield UV-PGL glass primer
- Protective coatings MaraShield UV-RG, UV-RM, UV-FXG, UV-FXM and UV-AG, plus ClearShield
The performance figures are the company's own
PRO TECHnology's product page makes specific performance claims for individual lines. It describes UltraJet DUV-CP as running at "roughly twice the speed at half the ink consumption" of standard inks, with a high-opacity "170 White" and a formulation free of BPA, TPO and heavy metals. The same page states the UV/LED systems are "100% solvent-free" and that ink on glass containers has withstood "500 dishwasher cycles" in testing. These are the company's own figures, published on its distributor page, not results verified by EgyptPulse.News or by any independent testing body.
Marabu's corporate site, marabu.com, does not publish product-level specifications of this kind: it covers company history and general positioning rather than individual ink performance data, so the speed, opacity and dishwasher-cycle figures are not independently confirmed by the manufacturer's own pages. Specifications, product names and figures in this article are as published by PRO TECHnology and Marabu at the time of writing and may change.
What the distribution deal covers
According to PRO TECHnology's announcement of the appointment, the arrangement covers screen printing inks, pad printing inks — including for toys, closures and electronic components — digital inks in solvent, UV-curable and water-based inkjet forms, and liquid coatings, all held in Dubai stock. The company frames the change as removing long import lead times for regional printers, in favour of regional technical support and colour matching drawn from local inventory.
The announcement also names three machine platforms — LSINC, DCS and wallPen — for which the Marabu inks are matched, tying the distribution deal to specific printing hardware rather than a general ink catalogue. For a Dubai print or signage business, that combination of local stock and machine-matched formulations is the practical change: a substrate trial or a colour match that once meant waiting on a shipment from Germany can now be run against inventory already held in the UAE.
An ink maker's own account of its footprint
Marabu's homepage states, in its own words, that "Marabu printing inks are used all over the world - with 16 subsidiaries worldwide and sales partners in more than 80 countries," describing itself as "a worldwide leading manufacturer of Screen, Pad and Digital Printing Inks." That description is the company's own characterisation of its position in the market, not an independently verified ranking.
The company's history page traces its move from a single Stuttgart shop to that footprint: production began in 1870, the headquarters relocated to Tamm in 1919 for lack of space, and the company opened a dedicated colours factory in Bietigheim-Bissingen in 2004. It launched its first digital printing ink in 2002, and its digital portfolio now exceeds 20 series, according to the same page.
The same history page breaks down current staffing by site: more than 250 people at the Tamm headquarters, 24 in France and 90 at the Bietigheim-Bissingen facility, with the company describing its representation as spanning 16 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Marabu's homepage separately states the company has 16 subsidiaries worldwide, with sales partners in more than 80 countries in total.
Common questions
When did PRO TECHnology become Marabu's Middle East distributor?
21 January 2024, according to the announcement on PRO TECHnology's own website.
What does PRO TECHnology stock locally now?
Marabu's UV-curable and UV-LED inkjet inks, screen and pad printing inks, digital inks, and a range of primers and protective coatings, held in Dubai stock rather than imported to order, according to PRO TECHnology's product page.
How old is Marabu, and where is it based?
Marabu traces its history to 1859, when Albert Martz opened an artists' paint store in Stuttgart, Germany. The company is now headquartered in Tamm, near Stuttgart, according to its own history page.
Is PRO TECHnology part of a larger group?
Yes. PRO TECHnology's own website lists sister companies, including EVO Shop, Sun Studio, HawaQ, PRONEXT and xAIa, under a "Group" heading in its site footer, alongside PRO TECHnology itself. EgyptPulse.News has separately covered two of those companies, Sun Studio and xAIa, as part of the same Dubai group.
