Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday he expects that moves to raise the wages of the country's workers will spread from large companies to medium-sized firms.

Increasing wages is important to Abe's efforts to have monetary stimulus and huge fiscal spending spur consumer spending and pull the country out of 15 years of deflation and uncertain growth.

This month, some of Japan's biggest companies -- including Toyota Motor Corp. -- decided to offer workers their biggest pay raises in years.

However, the vast majority of Japanese employees work for smaller companies, which have not benefited as much from Abe's economic policies.