On September 8, 2017, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the eleventh meeting of the Council on Investments for the Future at the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the meeting, debate took place on issues related to the Growth Strategy and the way forward.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“As a result of Abenomics, for the first time in 11 years, the Japanese economy has grown for six consecutive fiscal quarters. In addition, thanks to the increases in wages we have seen for the past four years in a row, we are realizing strong economic growth led by domestic demand. In order to cement this growth path for the future, Abenomics must continue to seek out challenges, more challenges, and still more challenges.

Among these, with Japan facing the rapid progression of declining birthrates and the aging of society, the next major challenge for our Growth Strategy will be the realization of Society 5.0, which will resolve various social issues. Japan will firmly lead innovation for the fourth industrial revolution, including in the fields of robotics, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, which are all gaining prominence throughout the world. Japan will lead the world in taking on the challenge of revolutionizing productivity. By dramatically improving productivity, we will be able to sustain and reinforce the wage increases that have taken place for the past four years. I am confident that it is the productivity revolution that will put us on a firm path toward overcoming deflation. Groundbreaking policies will of course be needed in order to realize that revolution. We will create bold policies unlike any we have had before. We will utilize every possible policy, including policies on tax systems, budgets, and regulatory reform, to encourage bold investments in facilities and human resources for increasing productivity.

A topic that we once again discussed today was the question of what sort of conditions the Government should create in order to connect historically high current profits and high levels of corporate reserves to investments and wages. What can the business community do on this issue? There needs to be a sincere discussion of this matter.

With the assistance of this Council on Investments for the Future and in close collaboration with the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, I would like Minister Motegi and all other relevant ministers to align themselves with this and specify the measures needed to bring about a productivity revolution.”