I was talking to a friend over the weekend who had been in Japan during the week at a relatively high level meeting in which the aging of countries was discussed.

Apparently Japan has taken the view that they will not allow immigration of foreign nationals to provide support for their increasingly aging population. Their view is that their culture would be damaged and that the solution is in robots.

This has got to mean that there will be a tremendous amount of investment in all kinds of associated technologies, and an opportunity to establish global leadership in this area of business.

I think that this has very important implications for countries like Australia where we have a greying population, a phenomenal potential for continuing wealth generation as a result of the ongoing demand for resources and a limited amount of carrying power for the land itself because of water shortages.