The auto sector has pulled out of the financial crisis, the head of the Renault group said yesterday, adding his voice to a growing body of opinion that the global economy is on the upward climb.

The chairman and managing director of the French auto maker, Carlos Ghosn, told Le Figaro: "While we are still in a depressed economic situation, the financial crisis is clearly behind us."

He said that the chain of finance and banking arrangements available in the auto sector had returned to more normal conditions.

But Mr Ghosn, speaking a few days before the opening of the Frankfurt auto show, said that the industry should not expect "a strong rebound in the immediate future" but rather "a gentle climb back, spread over several years".

Ghosn, who heads the overall Renault-Nissan group, said that he expected to see an increased trend for companies to link up.

"We are seeing an explosion of investment in technologies by automakers, particularly concerning clean cars, at a time of great financial fragility. This situation is pushing them to work together to share investment," he said. As the global financial crisis suddenly hit all sectors of economies towards the end of last year after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, and credit dried up, the auto sector in many countries was one of the first to be thrown into distress.

The US administration, and some governments in Europe, pumped out massive help to rescue automakers or reduce the number of jobs being cut.

Some countries provided state subsidies to people who scrapped old cars to buy a new one.