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Japanese Prime Minister Shizo Abe's economic advisory group has proposed a five-year plan to invest $400 billion in order to increase the productivity of small businesses. This is a key step in the Japanese government's efforts to achieve wage growth far exceeding inflation. Small and medium-sized enterprises employ 70% of Japan's workforce and have been working hard to increase wages, as their profit margins in terms of wages have surpassed those of large corporations. The goal set by this five-year plan is to steadily achieve a real wage increase of 1% higher than the inflation rate. Specific measures include investing 60 trillion yen ($407.86 billion) in the public and private sectors over the next five years to allow small and medium-sized enterprises to digitize or automate their operations and enhance support to promote mergers and acquisitions.