Taiwan will hold an international conference on Oct. 12 to discuss research progress, commercial opportunities and communication applications related to the country's automotive industry, the event's organizer announced Sunday. The conference is also aimed at creating new markets for local companies and providing them with opportunities to enter the automobile industry's global supply chain. It will invite international representatives from academia and industry, including Microsoft to take part in the event, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said. The conference will be held at the Taipei World Trade Center's Nangang Exhibition Hall. According to a forecast of the research firm iSuppli, the global market for automotive electronics will increase to more than US$100 billion by 2014, as the ratio of electronic components to the total cost of producing a car has risen from 19 percent in 2001 to 40 percent in 2010. 