Japan PM seeks to boost workers wages, defence capability

Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida vowed on Monday to ensure worker wage hikes to protect the economy from rising global inflation, while strengthening the country’s defences.

The Prime Minister made the remarks on the opening day of parliament’s extra session convened to debate a supplementary budget to cushion the blow from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since he took office in October, Kishida has piled pressure on Japanese firms, urging those whose earnings have recovered to pre-pandemic levels to raise wages by 3% or more.

“The government will lay the groundwork to help private-sector firms hike wages by strengthening taxation and give bold deductions for companies that raise pay.

“As anxiety has grown that rising global inflation may have ripple effects on Japan, I will do the utmost to realise wage hikes in order to protect the Japanese economy,” he added.

On security policy, Japan will fundamentally strengthen its defence posture by looking into options including acquiring the capability to strike enemy bases.

“In order to safeguard the people’s lives and livelihood, we’ll examine all the options including capability to attack enemy bases and strengthen our defence posture fundamentally with a sense of speed,” Kishida said.

As part of effort to boost Japan’s defence capacity, the government will renew three main documents laying out the nation’s security policy, the National Security Strategy, National Defence Programme Guidelines and Medium-Term Defence Programme in a year

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Kamila/Reuters