The meeting, held by the Ministry of Justice, also saw the participation of representatives from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam Social Security and other relevant ministries and agencies.

According to the proposal, the draft amended Law on Social Insurance is aimed at institutionalising Party and State viewpoints, guidelines and policies on social insurance; ensuring the consistency of related legal document systems; and tackling shortcomings and limitations drawn from the implementation of the Law on Social Insurance.

The seventh plenary session of the 12th Party Central Committee issued Resolution No 28/NQ-TW on May 23, 2018 on social insurance policy reform with the targets: “Reforming social insurance policy to make social insurance a key pillar of the social security system, gradually increasing the rate of social insurance coverage towards the goal of universal social insurance. Developing a flexible, diversifying, multi-level, modern and international integrated social insurance system on the basis of equity, equality, sharing and sustainability. Improving State management capacity, efficiency and effectiveness and developing a system to implement social insurance policy professionally, reliably and transparently”.

Illustrative image (source: internet)

Based on appraising and reviewing the plan to reform social insurance policy adopted by the Party Central Committee at its seventh session and reports of relevant ministries, agencies and localities, the 2014 Law on Social Insurance which replaced the Law on Social Insurance 71/2006/QH11 achieved positive results. That was the expansion of participants of compulsory social insurance that included workers with labour contracts of one to three months and foreign workers who work in Vietnam with work permits or professional certificates granted by Vietnamese authorised agencies; the State supported voluntary social insurance payment; increasing the maternity leave from four to six months and developing regulations covering maternity leave for men when their wives give birth; as well as maternity leave policies for workers who are surrogate mothers; and adjusting retirement pension.

However, there still remain shortcomings: the rate of social insurance coverage as regulated by laws and in reality was still low; regulations about the minimum time to get a retirement pension were too tight, leading many people to leave the social insurance system before retiring; the social insurance policy has not yet targeted universal social insurance; and there is a lack of comprehensive and tight connection between the social insurance policy and other social policies to make it a key pillar of the social security system so the rate of social insurance coverage remains low, particularly in the fields of agriculture, rural areas and areas without labour relations.

As of 2020, there were nearly 32 million people of working age in the labour force that are not yet participating in social insurance. The target of having around 60 per cent of working-age people in the labour force participate in social insurance by 2030 set by the Resolution No 28/NQ-TW will be a great challenge without basic solutions in terms of both policies and implementation.

Agreeing with the proposal to amend the Law on Social Insurance in the current context, participants at the meeting highly appreciated the preparations of the proposal. In order to complete dossiers to submit to higher levels, participants suggested the compiling agency continue studying and adjusting some contents related to assessing the impacts of policies and consider the amendments of other specific contents of the draft law.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Minister of Justice Phan Chi Hieu, who doubles as Chairman of the Council appraising the law, said opinions at the meeting would help the Ministry of Justice complete the appraisal report and help the compiling agency complete dossiers to submit to the Government. 

Agreeing with the necessities mentioned in the draft law, the deputy minister asked the compiling agency to continue in further study and supplementation./.