New Delhi: Having generated an estimated Rs20,000 crore of business, the Ninth Auto Expo 2008 came to a close on 17 January.

Organisers Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Automotive Components Manufacturers Association (ACMA) and Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) termed the event a huge success, having generated unparalleled business, and being the biggest in terms of size and scale yet.

The auto show tallied around 9,000 trade enquiries, of which two-thirds were generated by business visitors, and the remaining being generated by foreign visitors, co-exhibitors, and general visitors.

30 international delegations from Germany, France, Japan, Spain and Canada and others expressed interest in the Indian auto component sector.

Aiming at a better future for the Indian automotive industry, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), organised a seminar on future vehicle technologies at the Indian Habitat Centre as part of the Auto Expo '08, in association with MIRA UK, an independent consultancy.

The objectives of the conference was identifying five aspects of automobile industry, like intelligent vehicle that could minimise human error while driving, upgrading safety standards, and fuel consumption, commercial availability of alternate fuels such as hydrogen and solar energy, and environment-friendly technology.

A robotics and automation conference was also organised jointly by CII, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) concurrent to the 9th Auto Expo.

The two-day conference aimed to provide a platform to participants to network and learn from the experts and practitioners in robotics and automation.

Highlighting the increasing importance of the Robotics and Automation industry Kapil Sibal, minister for science and technology & earth sciences said, "The world is moving towards globally integrated economic structures; India can compete with global economies only if it adopts global practices. Robotics will be valuable and we will have to encourage it to make it important not only for particular companies but to the nation as a whole".