At the seminar, Deputy General Director Le Hung Son affirmed that social insurance is a key pillar of the social security system in Vietnam. After more than 7 years of implementation, the Law on Social Insurance 2014 has affirmed the appropriateness of social insurance policies and regimes according to the principle of payment and enjoyment, meeting the aspirations of the majority of employees, ensuring social security and international integration.

The 7th Conference of the 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam issued Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW on reforming social insurance policies with the goal of reforming social insurance policies to make social insurance become a main pillar of the social security system, gradually expanding the coverage of social insurance, towards the goal of universal social insurance; developing a flexible, diversified, multi-tiered, modern social insurance system with international integration according to the principles of payment and enjoyment, fairness, equality, sharing and sustainability; improving the capacity, effectiveness and efficiency of state management and developing a lean, professional, modern, reliable and transparent system for implementing social insurance policies.

Deputy General Director of Vietnam Social Security Le Hung Son delivered speeches at the conference

According to the assessment of the International Labor Organization (ILO), Resolution No. 28-NQ-TW on reforming social insurance policies has a lot of progressive content, approaching the standards of social security in the ILO's Conventions and Recommendations. Therefore, the institutionalization of views, lines and policies of the Party and State on social insurance in Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW should be implemented through the amendment and supplementation of relevant legal documents according to a roadmap suitable to the country's socio-economic development conditions, including the Law on Social Insurance. “VSS is an agency under the Government, assigned by the Government to organize the implementation of social and health insurance policies and regimes; organize the collection and expenditure of unemployment insurance regime; management and use of funds: social, health and unemployment insurance; specialized inspection of the payment of social, health and unemployment insurance contributions according to the provisions of law. As a result, after studying the application file for the development of the amended Law on Social Insurance, VSS found that a number of contents need to be clarified and adjusted in this draft amendment to the amended Law on Social Insurance and these issues need the input of international experts who are specialized and knowledgeable about the nature of the global social security system.” - emphasized Son.

Robert J. Palacios - Chief expert in the field of social security in the East Asia-Pacific region, said that the amendment of the Law on Social Insurance is of great importance and appropriate in the current context. Vietnam is the fastest aging Asian country, faster than both Japan and China, so the issue of social insurance coverage as well as the regime needs to be handled when amending the Law on Social Insurance. Therefore, together with Resolution 28, Vietnam also needs proactive measures to increase the proportion of participants in the social insurance system, otherwise, Vietnam will fall into the state of "getting old before getting rich".

At the seminar, Ms. Dinh Thu Hien - Deputy Director of the Department of Social Insurance Implementation raised the current situation of some social insurance regimes being regulated in other laws such as the Labor Code (unemployment insurance); Law on Occupational Safety and Health (occupational accident and disease). On the other hand, according to the 2014 Law on Social Insurance, which is covering social insurance for those who have an employment relationship and the amended Draft Law on Social Insurance proposes to add a group of subjects participating in compulsory social insurance, including the head of business household; the business manager, the executive manager of the cooperative without salary; specifying the participation in compulsory social insurance for part-time employees.

Towards expanding the safety net and sustainable development

According to Hien, Resolution No. 28 sets a target that by 2025, 45% of the labor force of working age will participate in social insurance (of which 2.5% will participate in voluntary social insurance); By 2030, 60% will participate in social insurance (of which 5% will participate in voluntary social insurance). “Therefore, in order to achieve the above goal, it is necessary to expand the subjects who work without labor contracts, have stable jobs, incomes, and binding obligation between the job and remuneration recipients and the person assigning the job and paying the remuneration; stipulate groups of subjects participating in social insurance according to the gradual expansion roadmap and assign the Government to regulate to ensure balance and suitability with income in each period; supplement the maternity allowance in the voluntary social insurance policy to attract people to participate in voluntary social insurance", suggested Hien.

On the issue of expanding social insurance coverage and the current situation in Vietnam, Christophe Lemiere - Human Program Leader for Human Development in Vietnam shared that in 2019, Vietnam had about 23.6% of the workforce participating in social insurance, of which most are employees (except for the group of individual business households) but not all of them (21% of them do not participate in social insurance) with an average monthly salary of 7.5 million VND. VND/person; the number of people who do not participate in social insurance has an average salary of 5.2 million VND/person/month. Notably, in all occupations, the monthly income of the group participating in social insurance is higher than that of the group not participating. Participation rates and contributions in emerging economies are still low because the 2014 Law on Social Insurance excludes some groups of workers; social insurance contributions are high, and employees do not have enough income to participate in social insurance.

According to Christophe Lemiere, since 2018 voluntary social insurance participants are supported by the state budget, so the number of people entering the system has doubled every year. Vietnam is not the only country that supports groups to participate in voluntary social insurance, but many countries (China, Thailand, India, Philippines, Colombia, Rwanda) do support contributions to encourage participants to participate but support standards and results are different. If the state budget still provides support, by 2030 the number of voluntary social insurance participants can reach 10 million. “In order to sustain the policy, the Government must increase the participation in compulsory social insurance, cancel the one-time withdrawal of social insurance in advance, and support 30-50% of the voluntary social insurance contributions for the poor group (costs range from VND3,196 to VND20,482 billion depending on assumptions - equivalent to 0.08% of GDP) in order to achieve the target of 60% of the workforce participating in social insurance by 2030.” - suggested Lemiere.

At the seminar, members of the team that developed the Law on Social Insurance and WB experts clarified issues related to social insurance coverage, integration between social insurance policies and social pensions, financial solutions as well as the attraction for workers to participate in voluntary social insurance; the gap between pension enjoyment and social pension; communication scenarios with each target group and region; balance the social insurance fund; the rate of one-time social insurance benefits.

Concluding the seminar, Deputy General Director Le Hung Son thanked WB experts for sharing and responsible comments on the experiences of countries in social insurance development by WB experts as well as specific talks regarding economic resources in supporting participants of voluntary social insurance (determined as a percentage of GDP) has great significance for the authorities in Vietnam. Son also suggested that WB experts, when working with ministries, sectors and the Government, will be the bridge to provide general information on the situation such as: a specific roadmap on state support with social pensions festival; shorten the public-private sector gap; the principle of payment and enjoyment with long-term fund balance. At the same time, we hope that the WB will continue to support VSS in a number of contents in the coming period so that the implementation and management of social insurance can achieve high results in the technological era./.