In its annual financial report for August, 2011, Tomoe Shokai, the largest gas distributor in Japan, announced that both earnings and profit were up. However it appears that this financial year will be a tough one.

Sales amounted to JPY68.236 billion up by 5.2% with an ordinary income at JPY2.513 billion up by 35%, compared with the previous year. They attained a substantial increase in their profit during this term which attributed to the low level of business performance in the sluggish electronics industry during the previous term.

For the period from September last year to February this year, there was a steady growth in demand for gases owing to the good performance in the field of electronics. However, due to the collapsed supply chain and other difficulties after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March, the business has been plunged into the situation which cannot be described as good any longer. For the April-May period, as a matter of fact, the business pace was decelerated by nearly 20% compared with the year-earlier period.

Despite the situation, however, Tomoe Shokai achieved an increased revenue by 5.2% in terms of the full-year business result, so that they made up for the gap with the better result attained in the previous period until February.

Sadao Fukao, president of the company said, “The electronics-related industries of Japan will be driven into a downscaling trend in capital investments from now on. It follows that the year 2012 will be a tough one.”

In addition, the plant of Thai Japan Gas (Rojana Industrial Park) Tomoe’s group company located near Ayuttaya in Thailand was submerged in the recent flood damage and recovery operations are about to start from now on. Fortunately, however, their supply system was not affected because they could take advantage of the expanded part of their sterilizing gas facilities in the southern region of Thailand which was not flood-ravaged.