On January 14, Kunishi Hazama Chairman of JIMGA addressed in New Year’s Greeting held in Tokyo, “Due to the consumption tax rise, there seems to be a limited recovery still in the gas industry this year. Nevertheless, speaking of the volume sold of gas in 2014, it recovered from last year as a whole, with oxygen having stayed flat, nitrogen probably having grown by 2-3% and argon by 5%. However, comparing with the business result at the peak of 2007, it tells that oxygen remained yet at the level of 75%, nitrogen 80% and argon 85%. Having many expectations on the key pillars of the economic reform and growth strategy of the government, we think it requires time and efforts, while structural renovations should be done at the industrial side.

We also have to keep an eye on the timing of further hike of the consumption tax. In addition, our industry highly consuming electricity is destined to have a burden of JPY 3 billion due to the rate hike of Hokkaido Electric in last November and Kansai Electric in the coming April. We intend to keep carrying out such an activity as to submit requests by the federation of 11 associations to enable continued business of the high power-consuming industry. Inside the industry we do require implementation of deregulations mainly in hydrogen stations for more effectively-restrictive measures. Last December there was an accident in an oxygen plant. I would like to emphasize on deepening discussion of safety considerations with much more careful attention to safety and security as well as industrial and medical activities.”