Hoa warmly welcomed the Chinese delegation amid the deep and comprehensive development of the friendship and cooperation between the two Parties and States. He highlighted that 2025 will mark a historic milestone – the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relation between Vietnam and China. Since establishing the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in 2008, particularly through high-level visits, two countries solidified a new status toward further development in the future.

VSS held a working session with China’s National Healthcare Security Administration, including participants from Guangxi Medical Security Bureau. The two sides exchanged on key topics such as universal health coverage, organizational model, management decentralization, long-term care for the elderly, health insurance fund premium payment methods, drug lists, centralized procurement of medical supplies, and future bilateral cooperation.

Illustrative image 

Hoa emphasized that in this new era, with long-term strategic directions from both nations’ leaders, Vietnam looks forward strengthening exchanges and learning from China’s medical security institutions. Such cooperation helps VSS improve policy research and provide timely recommendations to authorities for enhancing fair and sustainable social security policies and both countries’ development.

Lai Vinh Dong, Deputy Director of the Guangxi Medical Security Bureau, agreed with the proposed areas of cooperation and affirmed their readiness to promote practical collaboration with VSS. Priority cooperation fields include finance and health insurance fund management, drug price regulation, reform of centralized procurement, and innovation in health insurance examination and treatment payment methods—especially in aging population and high demand for medical care context.

On this occasion, Dong also invited VSS to participate in the upcoming Medical Exhibition in Guangxi as part of the cooperation.

Dong shared that China has been essentially finalized the social security system with social insurance as one of the pillars. Health insurance covers more than 95% of the population, becoming the largest social security system in the world. Notably, to address medical cost challenges and optimize budget usage, China implements a drug and medical supply procurement reform program based on a centralized, volume-based procurement principle. The reform is built on four key principles:

Volume-based purchasing with lower costs: Around 70% of public healthcare institutions’ demand is used to place bulk orders, thereby boosting competition and lowering prices.

Combination of bidding and procurement to ensure implementation: Health facilities commit to contracting with bid acceptance suppliers, ensuring timely delivery and winning products usage.

Quality and supply guarantee: Suppliers must pass testing requirements and prove bio-equivalence to generic drugs, ensure sufficient supply.

Guaranteed payments and cost reduction: Healthcare facilities must complete payment by the end of the following month after receiving goods. The Health Insurance Fund provides advance payments to ease financial pressure on suppliers.

Concluding the meeting, both parties agreed to continue expanding cooperation opportunities on health insurance and focus on sharing fund management models, procurement practices, drug price control and payment reform. Both agencies’ leaders exchanged commemorative gifts and expressed their hope for a closer, more practical partnership toward enhancing the quality of each country’s social security system.

----------------------------------------------------------------

In order to survey the demand for accessing information on the English version of the Vietnam Social Security Portal at https://vss.gov.vn/english/news/Pages/default.aspx, the Editorial Board is conducting a survey to collect feedback for better service to our readers.
Please complete VSS's User Experiece Survey here: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd8yySnxxWhWwpTtQuOSLJ-VH_hJ5XH2a-LcVfC06kitsAPPw/viewform

We sincerely thank our readers for taking time to share your opinions.