Minister of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung made the statement at the 13th National Party Congress of the Communist Party of Việt Nam on the afternoon of January 27 in Ha Noi.

Dung also said that the insurance sector needed to expand and maintain universal health insurance, improving the quality of grassroots-level and preventive healthcare facilities and make grassroots-level healthcare facilities the foundation to serve people’s healthcare.

Besides, it was necessary to develop social assistance diversely and effectively as well as being suitable to the human life cycle, he added.

The ratio of people receiving social assistance was targeted to reach 3.5 per cent of the total population by 2025 and 4 per cent by 2030, he said.

The sector also should develop and diversify social-assistance services to ensure the principle of not leaving anyone behind, he said.

Dung said currently, Viet Nam had pursued the goal of becoming a developing country with modern industry and upper middle income by 2030. Thus, Viet Nam would face fierce competition in the regional and global labour markets and the impacts of the fourth industrial revolution.

At the same time, the rate of trained workers was still low and the labour structure was not reasonable; the youth unemployment rate was still high, about 3 times higher than the general unemployment rate; the results of poverty reduction were not sustainable and the gap between rich and poor tended to increase, he said.

We needed continuing to improve the effectiveness of social development management on the basis of grasping and concretising targets and tasks set by the 13th National Party Congress to overcome current challenges, he said.

Of which, people were the driving force of development and the centre of social policies, he added.

“We should identify social policies that give care for the people as a strategic task and a responsibility of the Party, the State, ministries, sectors, organisations, individuals and the whole society,” he said.

Viet Nam had to build a system of social policies, in accordance with the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress and concretise the 2013 Constitution to suit international standards, responding to challenges in deep integration, Dung said.

Achievements

Dung said the State had spent 21 per cent of the State budget on social welfare, the highest number among ASEAN countries, thereby successfully implementing the targeted tasks.

Especially, the policies for relatives of people who contributed to the national revolutionary cause had been paid special attention by the Party and the State.

It was estimated that 99.7 per cent of families that had people contributing to the national revolutionary cause had a standard of living equal to or higher than the average living standard of the people around their residence, he said.

Besides, the international community has also highly appreciated Viet Nam in its poverty reduction.

Viet Nam is one of the first 30 countries in the world and the first country in Asia applying the multidimensional poverty index.

The multidimensional poverty index is not only calculated by income but also other dimensions. Viet Nam’s poor population has declined from 70 per cent in 1990 to 2.75 per cent in 2020.

Dung said over the past five years, Viet Nam had created about 8 million new jobs with higher income compared to the previous period. Viet Nam was also one of the 10 countries having the lowest unemployment rate in the world.

The labour structure had changed positively while the labour rate in the agricultural, forestry and fishery sectors decreased from 45 per cent in 2015 to 32 per cent in 2020.

An additional of 750,000 people had participated in health insurance in 2019-20. Over 90 per cent of the population has participated in health insurance so far, about 12.7 times higher than in 1995, he said./