Japan PM Kishida urges spurring wage hikes to avoid stagflation

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called on Thursday for business leaders to accelerate wage hikes, warning that the economy risked falling into stagflation if pay rises lagged price increases.

"There are warnings of alarm bells that stagflation emerges if wage growth lags behind price hikes," Kishida told a New Year gathering of three major business lobbies.

(Reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto; Writing by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)