An industry ministry study group Thursday called for government measures to help promote the use of robots to deal with the rapidly aging workforce.

The group, set up by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in January, said in an interim report that the expanded use of robots will be vital to maintaining the country's labor force after baby boomers begin to retire in 2007.

The report says there will be a huge market for robots in the manufacturing and service sectors following the mass retirement of the baby boomers.

Robots that do such household chores as washing dishes and taking out the garbage would encourage more women to enter the labor market, making up for the labor shortage expected to arise as society continues to gray, according to the report.

The paper also suggested that Japan establish a system under which people and robots work together so it can produce items more efficiently at manufacturing plants and get more of an edge on countries with lower labor costs, such as China.

The report also calls for the universalization of communications and other standards for the machines, and deregulation in such areas as traffic regulation so robots can work on the streets.

It also called for an effective robot development system in which universities and private companies would cooperate and share their research work.

METI has been conducting experiments with robots at the World Exposition in Aichi Prefecture.