Conference on global marketing through international purchasing held at the Ninth Auto Expo

17 January 2008

To coincide with the Ninth Auto Expo, the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) organised a conference, Access to Global Markets through International Purchasing Offices, (IPO) at the ninth Auto Expo. Addressing the conference, Sanjay Labroo, president, ACMA, emphasised the growing interest of global manufacturers in the Indian automotive industry and the ongoing government initiatives to encourage the growth of the sector. "Indian companies have a lot of potential and the industry's future looks great with our current GDP share of five per cent of this sector, pegged to reach 10 per cent soon", he said.

In his inaugural address on boosting purchaser-developer relationship in the Indian automotive industry,  Surajit Mitra, joint secretary, ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises, said, "We want to break into new markets specially in the auto component sector with liberalised market policies and opening of special economic zones. I believe we can create an atmosphere for a two way process to engage everyone not only as purchaser but also as a developer."

Mitra also unveiled plans for the government's initiative for a National Institute of Forging along with the National Institute of Design, and highlighted forging as an important sector for the automotive industry.

"We look forward to create a demand for new technology and innovative designing to modernise our industry with such initiatives", he said. He also mentioned that the ongoing national automotive testing and R&D infrastructure project (NATRIP) would create a state of the art testing, validation and R&D infrastructure in the country, which would help in transferring technology from tier I to tier III cities.

The project, with an investment of $380 million, aims at setting up independent automotive centres at Manesar, Chennai, Pune, Indore and Rae Bareily.

Representing the BMW Group, Thomas Thym, head, international purchasing offices, stressed that it aimed at exploring the opportunities for procurement of production material (components) as well as IT and Engineering services.