MONTEGO BAY, St James — Chief executive officer of Appliance Traders Ltd (ATL) Group Adam Stewart on Saturday hailed Toshiyuki Takagi, president of Panasonic Air Conditioner Company, for heading a six-man delegation on a visit to ATL Montego Bay’s showroom and two Sandals properties in an effort to deepen the long-standing relationship between the group and the Japanese company.

“It’s an amazing trip. We celebrated four decades of relationship with Panasonic, and this gentleman [Takagi], who has visited us, is in charge of Panasonic air conditioning systems, so he is on a world tour to key markets to understand how best to apply technology to air conditioning systems to specific markets,” Stewart explained.

“The mission of the trip is, of course, to review ATL’s success with Panasonic, as we lead the market by a long shot with the Panasonic brand. It’s Jamaica’s number one brand, but he [Takagi] is here to figure out how best to tailor the technology to suit the specific climate of the country, so we think it’s a huge privilege for us, for him to come all the way from Japan to visit us. We absolutely love their products, we think it’s the best on the market.”

During the courtesy call, the Panasonic delegation – three from Panasonic’s global office in Japan and the others from the company’s Latin America office – toured Sandals Montego Bay and Sandals Royal Caribbean resorts where they viewed some of Panasonic’s cutting-edge air conditioning installations.

At the ATL Montego Bay showroom, the group looked at a number of the Panasonic brand of air conditioning units on display.

Apart from Stewart, the ATL team that met with the Panasonic delegation included Managing Director Danville Walker; Mark Blair, head of engineering; Stacey Campbell, ATL’s sales manager; Christopher Johnson, head of procurement; and Khadeisha Dawes, product manager.

Walker told the

Jamaica Observer that the courtesy call from the Panasonic delegation was very significant for ATL.

“It was a significant visit. This gentleman, Mr Takagi, controls all of Panasonic’s air conditioning business worldwide, which is huge, so we are honoured to have him here, and we look forward to the growth and support, as we seek to grow our commercial air conditioning business,” Walker stressed.

“It [Panasonic air conditioning units] is an excellent product, and they are excellent partners, and they have shown the respect for ATL by visiting,” he added, stressing that the Japanese company had initiated the visit.

Walker argued that with the support from Panasonic he expects that the year 2017 will see a huge growth in ATL’s business, particularly in the air conditioning commercial division.

Blair agreed that the courtesy call was of great significance, adding that it came at a time when ATL is “the number one distributor of Panasonic air conditioning units in this region, in terms of sales.”

“And so they wanted to show us their respect and appreciation for ATL being a top performer, and also a partner for the last 40 years,” said Blair.

For his part, Takagi also stressed the importance of leading his delegation to ATL.

“The visit is very, very important to us… the relationship between us and ATL is long-standing and it’s a very, very good relationship, so ATL is very important for Panasonic. I am also very impressed with what I saw today and we believe that Jamaica can keep growing, so we really want to continue contributing to that growth,” he said.

He also expressed Panasonic’s commitment to the partnership with ATL, and pledged to supply the company with even more innovative products this year.