...and not the former 'workshop of the world', i.e. the UK. There was a historical difference in manufacturing and how that gets invested in. In the UK, with t

...and not the former 'workshop of the world', i.e. the UK. There was a historical difference in manufacturing and how that gets invested in. In the UK, with the all important stock market, the culture was to take the profits and invest them in the city. Meanwhile, in Germany, if, for example you were 'BMW', then the thinking was different - let's invest in the company and make even more cars and even more profit. What remained of British machine tool manufacturing was utterly crippled and gone for good when Margaret Thatcher arrived on the scene. The UK then gave up on manufacturing anything except weapon systems, if you were 'smart' then you would speculate on property rather than invest in a manufacturing company. The cultural problem in the UK was short-termism, a focus on the share price and the profits for the quarter, not the next decade. The robots came later, after the UK lost manufacturing (okay, not all of it, but manufacturing used to be what the UK was about). If you are already making die-casting machines then it is kind of logical to make a robot arm to get the part out of the die, so the German/Swiss/Scandinavian machine tool companies were able to move into that space. As mentioned, when Thatcher came along it was game over, it was also impossible to sell European presses etc. into the UK market. So I am pleased to see these vast and wonderful machines being fully appreciated and used in China.