South Korea plans to spend over 170 billion won (US$151 million) this year to
nearly double combined sales of the country's robot industry, the government
said Thursday.
Under the plan, announced at the first-ever policy
forum for the robot industry, the government will spend a total of 173.8 billion
won for the research and development (R&D) and training of experts,
according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
Of the total, 46.4
billion won will be spent specifically to help expand the market for the
country's robot industry.
Such efforts will help nearly double sales
by the industry from about 1.7 trillion won in 2010 to 3 trillion won this year,
it said.
The R&D efforts will first focus on the development of a
new unmanned firefighting robot, along with robots for agricultural
uses.
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