South China’s economic powerhouse of Guangzhou has set a goal of having 80 percent of the city’s manufacturing production done by robots instead of human labor by 2020.
According to an industrial development guideline issued by the municipal government on Tuesday, the use of industrial robots will be encouraged in mechanical and automobile manufacturing, food processing and the manufacturing of pharmaceutical, electronic and dangerous products.
The document says that there will be subsidies of up to 30,000 yuan (4,800 US dollars) for those who purchase or rent a robot, and a maximum one-off subsidy of 500,000 yuan for companies that introduce a complete set of automation equipment in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province.
The Guangzhou municipal government believes the rising human resource costs and increased demand for sophisticated manufacturing have provided an opportunity for accelerated roll-out of robots. Fostering a robot-making industry with estimated output value of over 100 billion yuan (US$16 billion) by 2020 Source Global Times China. (HT Iza Kaminska)