[Provisional Translation]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 4th meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy in 2016 at the Prime Minister's Office.

At the meeting, there was a discussion on the “recent economic situation” and “the improvement of statistics.”

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“The main goal of Abenomics is to link the fruits of growth to greater consumption and investment through wage increases, as well as to realize a robust positive economic cycle that includes small- and medium-sized enterprises.

In light of the fact that corporate profits are the highest they have ever been, to be honest, I was really hoping to see slightly more robust results from this year’s spring wage offensive. Nevertheless, we were able to achieve wage raises across the board at many corporations for the third year in a row. I believe that this is very significant. At the same time, it is pleasing to see new initiatives being implemented for improving the entire economy, including by expanding the wages of irregular workers and correcting disparity in wages among workers employed at the same groups of companies. I believe that the policies that we are currently promoting are aligned with the direction we have set.

I intend to place great importance on the government-labor-management agreement compiled by Keidanren and others. I would like for the relevant ministers to make all the necessary preparations for the matters included in that agreement, such as the improvement of transaction terms for subcontractors and other small- and medium-sized enterprises. We will aim to increase the minimum wage to 1,000 yen per hour, and then set out to increase that at the rate of approximately 3% annually. I request the thorough cooperation of the business community towards the improvement of transaction terms and other initiatives.

To increase individual consumption, we must thoroughly fulfill the wishes of the 9 million people who want to work and want to increase their work hours.

I want the relevant ministers to promptly hold discussions about what we can do to make it possible for part-time workers to continue to increase the amount of time they work.

In addition, we must ceaselessly improve statistics related to economic and fiscal management. Based on the initiatives compiled by the Statistics Commission , I would like Minister Takaichi to cooperate with other relevant ministers to increase the precision of our statistics. Furthermore, I would also like Minister Ishihara to strengthen initiatives toward the improvement of the statistics needed for an even more accurate evaluation of the fiscal climate.”