The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development urged Japan on Wednesday to implement bold structural reforms to boost economic growth and map out a "credible" plan to restore its precarious fiscal health.
Noting that the nation's aging population is likely to weigh on economic growth in the longer term, the OECD recommended that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government slow the pace of decline in the labor force by taking measures such as increasing female employment.
In its latest report, the Paris-based club of 34 wealthy nations said Japan's economic growth "resumed" in late 2014, although it was hurt by the 3-percentage-point consumption tax hike to 8 percent in April that year — the first tax increase in 17 years.