Dr. Bob Schnorbus, chief economist and director of macroeconomics at J.D. Power and Associates, will be the featured speaker for the Automotive Symposium at SUR/FIN 2008, which takes place June 16-18 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, IN. During his 90-minute presentation, which jumpstarts the day’s programming on Tuesday, June 17, Schnorbus will address topics such as:

• Short- and long-term automotive industry production forecasts.
• Interests rates and the weak U.S. dollar, and how that dynamic is spurring some overseas automotive manufacturers (as well as their Tier 1 supplier partners) to look at either establishing facilities in North America or expanding existing production sites.
• The impact of sourcing on subsuppliers, and how local Tier 2 & Tier 3 North American players are competing with some of the low-cost Asian countries.
• The impact of rising fuel costs and what that means in terms of worldwide demand.
• Incentives that some of the automakers have given to consumers and their impact on automotive manufacturers’ sales and profits.

“What Dr. Schnorbus intends to address are not some of the more traditional things you hear about-for example, the number of vehicles produced in Asia, North America, Europe, etc.,” said Linda Wing, SUR/FIN 2008 Automotive Symposium chair and industry manager-automotive, Enthone, Inc. “Instead, he is going to look at the link between the automotive industry trends and the economic trends. This may involve discussions on the stock market, employment, housing-all of which impact sales and automakers’ projections for production. This is critical because whatever is projected for production trickles down and affects subsuppliers.”

Seating for the presentation is limited. For more information or to register, visit www.sur-fin.net or contact Cheryl Clark at 202.457.8404 or cclark@nasf.org.