PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AFP) ? US President Barack Obama on Friday unveiled a 500 million dollar initiative to unite top universities and industry leaders to create new manufacturing jobs from cutting edge technology.
Obama, seeking to convince recession-weary Americans that his policies will speed up the sluggish recovery and spur jobs growth, traveled to the former steeltown of Pittsburgh to roll out his plan.
He toured a display dedicated to an advanced robot that can penetrate sewer systems and inspected a combat vehicle manufactured in just three months thanks to new manufacturing techniques helped by taxpayer dollars.
He cited the products as a symbol of the reinvention needed in the US economy, following its crisis and loss of jobs to dynamic developing nations.
"For better and worse, our generation has been pounded by wave after wave of profound economic change," Obama said.
"Revolutions in technology have transformed the way we live and the way we work. Businesses and industries can re-locate anywhere in the world, anywhere that there are skilled workers, anywhere that there is an Internet connection."
Obama however noted that his hosts at Carnegie Mellon University had been in the vanguard of reinventing America's industrial base with state-of-the-art technologies.
"We have not run out of stuff to make -- we've just got to reinvigorate our manufacturing sector so that it leads the world the way it always has, from paper and steel and cars to new products that we haven't even dreamed up yet," Obama said.
"That's how we're going to strengthen existing industries, that's how we're going to spark new ones."
Obama's initiative, announced at Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center, will bring together universities, industry leaders and the US government to invest in emerging technologies.
Republicans used Obama's visit to cast doubt on his credentials to spark jobs growth after the worst financial crisis in decades.
"President Obama needs to change his way of thinking. He needs to realize that government doesn't create jobs, it creates debt," said Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson in a web video.
"America is in an economic and debt crisis. What kind of leadership can America expect from a president who lacks the background and experience to know how the American economy works?"
Obama told reporters however during his Pittsburgh visit that the technologies he viewed proved how government could intervene to good effect.
He touted "government-funded research resulting in new products, new companies, new jobs."
Growth in the US manufacturing slumped nearly seven percentage points in May, in a sign of the slowing recovery and Obama has held several recent events to promote a sector vital to empowering economic recovery.
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