TOKYO (Reuters)

A Japanese government panel recommended on Friday that the national average minimum wage be raised by 41 yen (US$0.29) an hour to 1,002 yen, the biggest hike ever in value terms, as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida makes wages a key focus of his policies.

The health ministry panel’s annual recommendation serves as the nationwide standard for minimum wages.

“I welcome this outcome,” Kishida told reporters.

“Raising wages, as I’ve repeatedly said, is one of the most important challenges for the Kishida administration.”

Kishida and the Bank of Japan are hoping that wage hikes can be sustained so that they generate more consumer spending that decisively lifts the world’s third-largest economy out of decades of stagnation.

Minimum wages are set by the government, while in the annual round of spring wage negotiations, corporate management and labour unions negotiate directly over salaries.

Japan’s largest labour organisation, Rengo, said this month that major companies had agreed to average pay hikes of 3.58 per cent this year, the highest level in three decades.