The future looks bright for one of the region's leading hi-tech industries.

Key industry figures and academics gave an upbeat assessment of the outlook for the UK's photonics industry at a seminar organised by Oxford Innovation.

Photonics involves the transmission and manipulation of information, using light rather than electricity.

It is used in hospitals, TVs, CD players, digital cameras, screens on mobile phones, and laptop computers.

The seminar was organised by Banbury-based South East Photonics Network, part of the South East England Opto-electronics Skills project (Seos).

Seos was set up to help meet present and future skills' needs in the industry.

Oxfordshire is a leading player in the £30bn global market for photonics systems and components.

The county is also home to several of the industry's most prominent companies, including display device and opto-electronic component manufacturers Bookham.

Peter Benyon, business development manager of London-based investment specialists BTG, told the seminar: "Valuations are currently very depressed.

"Investors are more concerned with their current portfolio of companies, rather than with investing in new companies, because of the burst in the dot.com bubble and the collapse of the telecommunications sector market.

"But BTG is still investing in new ventures, because we believe that the underlying drivers for demand remain valid."