By Tom Brown
PARIS, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Leaders of the world's automotive industry were gathering on Friday in what some were calling an unprecedented summit meeting on the sidelines of the Paris auto show to discuss regulatory and environmental issues.
Industry sources said the meeting -- dubbed by some as the "CEO Summit" -- included chief executives of dozens of automakers and their suppliers and was focusing on public policy matters, including better ways to develop advanced car technologies.
They were also likely to lobby for standardization of pollution and safety testing among countries, which could lower costs for any car company doing business on a global scale.
Currently automaker must make expensive changes to sell the same car in countries with varying safety and emissions standards.
The meeting, called by PSA Peugeot Citroen chief executive Jean-Martin Folz, was thought to be among the first of its kind since the auto industry's inception over a century ago. Folz chairs the Brussels-based European automotive trade association, ACEA.
Rick Wagoner, chief executive of General Motors Corp, the world's largest automaker also will attend, but a GM spokesman declined to elaborate.
The auto bosses were expected to issue a statement when the afternoon meeting in a Paris hotel wrapped up, but some industry sources said major initiatives were not expected, saying little preparation had gone into the event.
"I have very low expectations frankly," Ford Motor Co Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr told Reuters.
"If this is a step in a series of meetings, that's fine. But if it's going to be a one-off then it's going to be more of just a social occasion," Ford said.
Ford, great grandson of company founder Henry Ford, did not elaborate.
But underscoring the importance of the auto industry, French President Jacques Chirac visited the showroom floor here early on Friday to get a first hand look at the glimmering sheet metal on hundreds of new model cars and trucks.
Bill Ford, who gave Chirac a guided tour of the Ford stand at the biannual show, said he reminded the president that Ford's sprawling engine transmisson plant in Bordeaux made the company the largest single private sector employer in a province better known for fine wines than powertrains.
"We're actually part of the French economy and have been part of the French economy for a long time," he added.