The Netherlands is working on a national programme to increase the use of robots and automation in industry, the Financieele Dagblad says on Friday.

A report entitled Smart Industry and drawn up by the economic affairs ministry, employers’ organisation FME and the TNO research institute will be presented to the Hannover Messe trade fair next week, the paper says.

The report will form the basis of a more in depth action plan to be finalised later this year.

The report’s compilers want to do more to ensure machines ‘talk to each other’ via an ‘internet of things’.

This, together with new production techniques such as 3D printers, should future-proof Dutch industry, the FD quotes the report as saying.