Air Liquide Japan (President: Shiro Yahara) held the 6th Nationwide General Meeting of its Distributor Network “D-Net” for two days from May 19 to 20 in which 140 member companies participated.

In the opening address of the general meeting President Yahara of ALJ told that he remembered lots of voices worrying and showing anxiety about ALJ’s future in the previous general meeting just after my taking office as president in the midst of our drastic structural reform. Air Liquide which made the first and best strategic move in the global market regards the Japanese market as a launching base of innovation toward the world and will go ahead positively with investments. He described his idea using a screen. As for practical topics he first reported the acquisition of Airgas in the U.S. market saying “We have recently obtained the approval of the Federal Trade Commission, and the acquisition would make us the world’s foremost industrial gas company after realization.” Regarding the investments in the Japanese market, he explained the planned construction of Tokyo Innovation Center (named tentatively to be completed in the summer of 2018) in Yokosuka City, the JCSS-certified standard gas, new packaged gas related to the food and air-conditioning application and also hydrogen stations.

He also introduced the membership Web site of “myGAS Portal” together with its function and advantages, which ALJ introduced just in May as a communication tool with new users and distributors.

This service is intended for common use of customer’s inventory conditions, use record of gas and emergency contacts free of charge among users and distributors for 24 hours through 365 days. Executive manager at the Customer Solution noted that it could be advantageous for distributors to enable easier control of their user information like monitoring of stock, schematic delivery and to differentiate themselves from competitors.