Orissa's annual flagship industrial exhibition 'Enterprise Orissa' 2008 was inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday.

Mr Patnaik emphasised on mega-industries pro-actively playing the role of mother industries and encouraging ancillary and downstream development activities.

"While traditional steel, aluminium and power sectors continue to grow rapidly, we are happy to see a more diversified and broad based industrial portfolio in the state today," he said while referring to agro-processing, advanced manufacturing, ship building and IT.

The state government is also committed to development of technical and vocational education sectors both qualitatively and also in terms of numbers, he said.

Out of the total number of MoUs signed, more than 50 per cent of the iron and steel projects have gone into commercial production, he claimed.

Enterprise 2008 is business matchmaking and marketing event. The industrial exhibition attracted a number of multinationals, and for a change, even the banking, insurance, social infrastructure and hospitality sectors were present. The exhibition is jointly organized by the CII and the government with a theme: "Orissa@2022'.