The voluntary social insurance policy has been implemented in two stages, with different provisions over the past 10 years.

The first phase was implemented in accordance with the 2006 Law on Social Insurance. The second stage was carried out in accordance with the 2014 Law on Social Insurance.

The 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam has compiled and issued Resolution No 28-NQ/TW on reforming social insurance policies with overall goals and solutions on May 23, 2018 to continue expanding coverage.

It sets a target that by 2021, farmers and workers in the informal sector participating in voluntary social insurance would account for 1 per cent of the labour force; 2.5 per cent by 2025 and around 5 per cent by 2030.

This is an important milestone in the implementation of voluntary social insurance policies with specific goals, mobilising the participation of the entire socio-political system.

Based on that, the Government has ordered ministries, sectors and relevant agencies to implement a range of solutions.

The solutions include amendments to existing policies so that a person could receive a monthly pension after contributing to the voluntary social insurance in 15 years or even 10 years in the future, instead of the current 20 years; raising the level of financial support to insurance users in accordance with the State budget; piloting flexible short-term packages of voluntary social insurance to meet people’s demand; attaching the benefits of participating in voluntary social insurance to other State incentives and assigning targets of increasing insurance participants to localities.

Therefore, 2020 will be an important year to achieve the first goal of voluntary social insurance under the resolution, because the number of voluntary social insurance participants might increase rapidly but still not be commensurate with the potential.

According to experts, the mobilisation of people to participate still faces difficulties and challenges because the voluntary social insurance policy is not attractive to freelance workers with low and unstable incomes, while the minimum time to receive a pension is 20 years.

Besides, the level of financial support from the State is limited and the commission is not attractive enough for agents.

Statistics show that about 30 million people have yet to participate in voluntary social insurance nationwide so far. 

This is an opportunity for the social insurance sector to continue achieving the goal of increasing participants.

Deputy General Director of Viet Nam Social Security Tran Dinh Lieu said to effectively implement the resolution, the sector would continue deploying many comprehensive and drastic solutions, co-operating with other relevant ministries and sectors, strengthening communication, widely disseminating the policy of voluntary social insurance to attract more participants.

Currently, the social insurance sector and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has compiled a dissemination plan following the resolution.

The two agencies will study and propose solutions to renovate the dissemination in both content and form to be friendlier with each citizen, towards disseminating via social media, as well as direct dialogue in residential areas and private homes.

The social insurance sector will expand the network of voluntary social insurance agents, so every village, hamlet and residential group has a voluntary social insurance collection agent.

The sector will also guide and train voluntary social insurance policies for agents’ staff so that they can disseminate information to each citizen.

The sector will assign targets of increasing voluntary social insurance participants to district-level social insurance units and each agent; promote the application of information technology; and reform administrative procedures to create the most favourable conditions for participants./.