Obama launches technology partnership to spur US jobs

President Barack Obama on Friday launched an initiative to develop new US manufacturing jobs by teaming government up with companies and universities to invest more than $500 million in advanced technologies.
Obama, who must ease high US unemployment to be confident of winning a second White House term in elections next year, visited Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to launch the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, aimed at fostering a new generation of US-made high-technology products.
"This partnership is about new cutting edge ideas to create new jobs, spark new breakthroughs, reinvigorate American manufacturing today. Right now," the Democratic president told an audience of around 200 in a robotics laboratory. The initiative does not involve new government spending and Obama, who is fighting Republicans to raise the US borrowing limit, emphasised the need to curb the country's deficit and debt, while investing in its future.
"If we want a robust growing economy we need a robust growing manufacturing sector," he said. "I ran for president to get us back to where we need to be. I have a larger vision for America." The White House says major new technologies in the past were commercialised into vast industries with the help of government-university-company partnerships, including telephones, jet engines and the Internet. It hopes for similar achievements by speeding development of new technologies such as next-generation robotics, advanced composite materials and bio-manufacturing.
The program will leverage existing federal funds and future federal departmental budgets to invest with industry some $300 million to jump-start domestic manufacturing capabilities seen as critical to US national security. Initial public-private investment areas include batteries, composites, metal fabrication, biotechnology and alternative energy. Obama is rolling out the initiative as the US unemployment rate remains at a stubbornly high 9.1 percent and initial claims for state unemployment benefits are ticking higher after months of decline.