The Global Automotive Forum 2011 was inaugurated at the Chengdu Century City New International Convention & Exhibition Center on October 11. As the largest scaled, highest graded and most important international industrial conference in the country, the forum focuses on the theme of "leaping forward to develop from a major producer to innovation-based great power." About 600 industrial elites, economists, famous scholars and policy makers in the world participated in the all-round exchanges and explorations of industrial structural change, development trends and Chinese factors.

Compared with last year's first session, the forum this year has been markedly improved in the number of honored guests and participants, and the fields and regions they represent. The honored guests include executives of global auto makers and components and parts suppliers, senior government officials, executives of financial institutions, and top-level experts of relevant industries.

The forum participants include senior executives of internationally famous motor corporations, such as Osamu Masuko, president of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, Katsuaki Watanabe, former president of Toyota Motor Corp, executive vice president of Nissan Motor Co, executive director of Honda Motor, Asia Region President of Continental AG of Germany, and Mervin Dunn, president and CEO of Commercial Vehicle Group of the United States. Executives of leading Chinese auto makers, including Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, Changan Automotive Group, Guangzhou Automobile Group, Dongfeng Motor Group and Great Wall Automobile Holdings, were also present at the forum.

The activities over the two-days were comprised of four plenary sessions, 11 seminars and debates, and four keynote speeches. Chinese and foreign auto industry leaders, experts and scholars made in-depth talks on a number of topics.

The forum, which attracted many industrial leaders, has contributed to developing Chengdu into an international auto base.

"Volvo will produce its first S60L at the Chengdu base. This will be the first model that Volvo makes in China. One S60L is expected to sell at 300,000 to 600,000 yuan. Volvo plans to produce other models in Chengdu in the future. The company is accelerating the construction of the Chengdu base. It hopes to have cars rolled off the production line by September next year. When complete, the Chengdu base will have an annual output of 100 billion yuan and will contribute over 10 billion yuan in tax," says Li Hua, executive deputy director of Chengdu economic and technological development zone. In addition, FAW-Volkswagen is speeding up its NCS production base in the city, with an annual output of 350,000 cars. It will go into operation this year.

Li Hua says that Chengdu automotive industrial comprehensive function zone has been home to 187 auto-based projects. They include 30 companies among the world top 500, and 40 listed companies. It has basically cultivated the zone into a finished auto production base with an annual output of one million vehicles.