By Li Hongmei

As Chinese plants lay off workers in the wake of rising labor costs, producers of industrial robots have found their domain expanding, according to China Business News, citing the example of the Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) Group.

ABB, a multinational corporation headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, which operates in robotics, entered the Chinese market in 1994.

ABB has moved its research and development headquarters as well as its manufacturing to Shanghai in recent years, making it the main base for most of its robot production. The robots are mainly used in high-end technology and highly automated foreign-funded plants, such as auto manufacturing or tobacco production until recently.

The domain of industrial robots has seen a dramatic increase over the past two years. Last year, ABB's orange colored robots were mainly used for auto manufacturing, but it had left considerable room for developing robots that do packaging or stacking jobs, for which low-cost laborers or forklifts were used in the past.

"We've developed stacking robots with the fastest speeds following demands from Chinese clients, and developed products according to their needs," said Li Gang, deputy president of ABB China, and head of robotics.

The new industrial robot series is coated in a white color, in contrast with the traditional orange.

As the new automation market emerges, many workers' positions have been filled by robots, and this has also opened a door for low-end product producers.