Buoyed by the success of signing the South Asian Free Trade Area agreement, India on Thursday committed to participate in free trade agreement with other nations in the region and asked the Indian auto industry to play a pivotal role and seize the global opportunity.

Giving a call for greater regional cooperation, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani also sought greater synergy between the government and private sector to capitalise on the domestic confidence and global respect for India to convert the prevailing "feel-good" factor into "feel-great" sentiments in the national endeavour to become a developed nation by 2020.

Inaugurating the Seventh International Auto Expo in New Delhi, Advani said: "SAFTA, Indo-Asean Free Trade Agreement, Indo-Thailand FTAs must be reviewed as an opportunity for India's automotive industry to become truly global player to invest worldly and grasp the global business opportunity."

"India is committed to participate in the free trade agreement with several countries in the region," Advani said, adding the global rush towards low cost components outsourcing provide the Indian auto industry with a "window of opportunity like never before."

Exuding confidence that the auto show would encourage more regional original equipment manufacturers around the world to use India as a platform for outsourcing as well as the global R&D hub, Advani said: "May I say that it is time to see yourself as partners not only to Indian auto manufacturers but to global original equipment manufacturers as well."

Dubbed as Asia's largest automotive show, the Auto-Expo, jointly organised by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturuers, Auto Component Manufacturers Association and Confederation of Indian Industry, has attracted 960 participants from 26 nations and about a million visitors are expected to visit the show.

Noting that auto majors like DaimlerChrysler are using India for detailed engineering and R&D, Advani said that the Indian industry would have to increase its attention and expenditure on research for making India a platform for "outsourcing as well as a global R&D hub... the auto component sector will be able to build on its inherent strength, take on global competition and realise our ambition of building Indian MNCs."

He said that the key challenge to the auto industry related to environment and the bar was being raised constantly, and the challenge was getting stronger making it necessary for individual company to stand the test of public scrutiny on the compatibility of the products.

Reminding that the prime minister's golden quadrilateral programme of road connectivity sought a suitable response from the auto industry in the form of good inter-city and inter-state people and goods carriers, he said that challenge for the industry was to come out with better, more comfortable and energy efficient public transportation vehicles.
             
Earlier, SIAM president Jagdish Khattar complimented the government for making the atmosphere conducive for "feel good" factor, but said that some taxes by states had neutralised the duty cuts by the Centre and the government still needed to undertake internal reforms.

Khattar regretted that despite the sizzling growth witnessed in the last few years, the car penetration level at six vehicles per 1000 persons had put the country among the lowest consumer level and pointed out that even Pakistan and Sri Lanka had double the car penetration level than India.

Khattar, who is the managing director of leader Maruti Udyog Ltd, said that China had overtaken India and the vehicle production in that country was expected to be 18 million this year against domestic production of seven million.

Likewise, two wheeler consumption in India was only 28 per 1000 persons against 79 in Indonesia and 198 in Thailand, he said this only demonstrated the potential that the Indian market had.