I find it astonishing that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, with a degree in economics from Waseda University and his years of experience in commerce, should urge companies to pay more to their workers in order to boost the economy as a whole. Surely this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the most basic principle of economics -- "supply and demand."
As has been seen in many other countries in recent years (America, Britain, India to name a few), it is when an economy picks up to the extent that leading companies must raise salaries in order to attract the best workers, and smaller companies have to follow suit to maintain their workforce, that doing so forces up the level of salaries as a whole.
Japan's economy is reviving, and at some stage salaries will start to rise consequent to such natural market forces, but any attempt to push this process artificially with large pay-scale increases could likely result in, as Toyota said, "weakening our international competitiveness." Is this not often the case following government interference with the mechanics of business?