Japan PM Abe: to ask companies to raise wages next year

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he will ask business leaders to raise wages next year at a meeting on Tuesday. Abe, in a televised news conference a day after his ruling coalition won a massive election victory, said he wants to compile economic stimulus measures by year's end and take steps to ease concerns about rising import prices.

Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner, the Komeito party, won 326 seats in Sunday's election, more than the 317 seats in the 475-member lower house required to maintain a two-thirds "super-majority" that smoothes parliamentary business.