Further encouragement for those hoping for an upturn in the global automotive sector this year has been drawn from comments made by the Nissan chief executive today.

Carlos Ghosn told an audience at the Paris Chamber of Commerce that initial signs for 2004 suggested that growth was beginning to harden.

Indeed, Mr Ghosn identified an upward trend in most of the world's key markets, including Europe, Japan and the United States.

'After two months in 2004, 2004 looks slightly better than 2003,' he said, according to Reuters.

The comments back the latest figures from the US automotive sector, which saw car and truck sales grow by 4.8 per cent during February.

Meanwhile, industry expert Professor Garel Rhys yesterday predicted that the automotive industry was on the threshold of huge development.

Addressing a gathering of the Society of Automotive Analysts (SAA), Professor Rhys outlined a period of major long-term growth in the industry.

'More vehicles will be produced in the next 20 years than were manufactured in the previous 110-year history of the industry,' he commented.

'The love affair we talk about with automobiles is really a love affair with individual mobility. As GDP/head increases, so do the wants and needs of people to come and go with more and more style and individuality.

An increase in demand for cars is likely to spur production levels, which in turn holds the potential to affect the volumes of platinum, palladium and rhodium bought by car manufacturers for use in autocatalysts to control harmful emissions.