Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday inaugurated an international conference on material engineering technology and heat treat, here in the presence of industrialist Sajjan Jindal and Padam Vibhushan Dr. R.A. Mahelkar, President, Reliance Industries.Speaking on the occasion, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said that India shares $1 billion of the global heat treat market which is growing at 12 per cent per annum. He added that this exhibition is truly international as 300 participants from all over the world have congregated on a single platform."With the growing population of the world, resources getting scarce and expensive. Materials & Engineering conference focuses on developing new materials, processes, theories and computational models to understand materials," Defence Minister further added.'Emerging Materials for Defence and Infrastructure' is the theme for the three-day event.