VSS General Director Nguyen The Manh

Severe impacts by the COVID-19 pandemic on social security

Reporter: Dear Mr. General Director, how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the field of social security, especially in the implementation of policies on social insurance and health insurance in our country?

VSS General Director Nguyen The Manh:

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a comprehensive and profound socio-economic impact on all countries, and is still remaining complicated. The Vietnamese economy has a large openness and deep international integration but has suffered serious impacts on the socio-economic fields. According to the General Statistics Office, by 2020, Vietnam's GDP increased by 2.91%, the lowest growth rate in the recent decade. Business development has been severely affected and most businesses have been cautious in investing more capital in production and business activities. In 2020, the number of newly established enterprises was 134,941, a decrease of 2.3% compared to 2019.

This has seriously affected implementation of social security in general, and policies on social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance in particular. The risk of social insurance debt increased due to difficult production and business activities. The number of employees participating in social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance reduced due to job loss and the number of newly established enterprises had not increased. Pressure was put on the expansion of voluntary social insurance participants due to the implementation of social distancing and difficulties in advocacy, etc.

If in December 2019, the number of people participating in compulsory social insurance was 15,200,000 nationwide; in May 2020, this figure was only 14,404,000, a fall of 796 thousand; The amount of debt of social insurance and health insurance increased by over 5% compared to the plan of collection in April 2020. The number of enterprises and units temporarily suspended to contribute to the retirement and survivorship allowance fund and a list of employees postponing labor contracts or taking unpaid leave, etc. also witnessed an increase.

Creativity in implementing social insurance and health insurance policies

Reporter: It can be seen that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are really severe. To contribute to ensuring social security and helping people, workers and businesses overcome difficulties, how did the Vietnam Social Security join the Government, ministries, branches and localities to perform the solutions and what were the results achieved?

VSS General Director Nguyen The Manh:

As soon as the epidemic broke out, the Government had adopted specific solutions and the whole political system went into a drastic action, together with the consensus and solidarity of the entire people. The Government had launched a dual goal of both preventing the epidemic and ensuring socio-economic development and social security for the people. The directing documents of the Government and functional agencies implemented lots of support packages and practical measures to increase the resistance of businesses, gradually normalize or adjust policies to support people and businesses.

As a Government agency in charge of implementing policies on social insurance and health insurance - the two main pillars of the social security system - Vietnam Social Security has proactively and closely followed the instructions of the Government, Ministries and the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control. In particular, Vietnam Social Security has synchronously deployed many solutions to support people and businesses to overcome difficulties caused by the COVID-19 epidemic such as: providing 100% of online public services at level 4 (sending documents, receiving and returning results online) on the Government's National Public Service Portal; pension payments and social insurance benefits through ATM accounts and the banking system; suspending or delaying the contribution of enterprises to the retirement and survivorship allowance fund under the Government's direction; ensuring the best interests of people participating in health insurance.

Vietnam Social Security has organized many activities to donate health insurance cards and voluntary social insurance books to support people with difficult circumstances

Most recently, Vietnam Social Security has announced the application "VssID - Digital Social Insurance" on smartphones with many utilities to save time and costs and reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection due to direct contact in participating, looking up and enjoying the policies of social insurance and health insurance, meeting the satisfaction of people and businesses.

In addition, with innovative and appropriate communication and advocacy solutions, although heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the development of participants in social insurance and health insurance still achieved positive results. By the end of 2020, the coverage of social insurance had been expanded with more than 16.1 million participants, reaching 32.6% of the workforce in the age group, of which the number of voluntary social insurance participants is nearly 1.1 million, nearly doubling compared to 2019, increasing by 1.2% compared to the target in Resolution 28 of the Party and 5 times increasing compared to 2015. Maintained and grew the insured under the universal health insurance roadmap with 88 million participants, accounting for 90.85% of the population, exceeding 0.15% of the coverage target set by the Prime Minister in Resolution No. 01 of the Government; in particular, compared to the target of the Resolution of the Resolutions of the 12th National Party Congress and Resolution No. 21 of the Politburo exceeded by 10.85%; etc.

The settlement of regimes and policies on social insurance and health insurance was implemented in a timely manner, with a modern, flexible and creative management method, especially during the COVID-19 epidemic, storms and floods in Central Vietnam; promoted electronic transactions, increasing the use of online public services, online payment, shortening time and saving costs for participants and policy beneficiaries.

In 2020, Vietnam's social insurance industry has settled nearly 134,000 new monthly beneficiaries of social insurance; nearly 9.6 million people enjoyed the benefits of sickness, maternity, recuperation and health rehabilitation; nearly 167.3t million turns of people received medical services under health insurance; etc. Maintaining monthly pension payments and benefits for over 3.2 million people (of which: cash payment for nearly 2.5 million people; payment for over 700 thousand people via personal accounts).

In the context of the COVID-19 epidemic, unemployment insurance policy has also helped hundreds of thousands of workers with financial resources to overcome difficult times and maintain their lives; helped employers to avoid financial pressure, as they did not have to pay severance and job loss allowances for employees and can reduce the burden on the state budget, as they did not have to allocate a budget as well as time to develop policies, sequences and procedures to support this object. In 2020, the whole country has settled the unemployment insurance regimes for more than 1 million people with the spending amount of more than 16,000 billion VND, an increase of 32.7% over the same period in 2019, etc.

Focusing on implementing 8 groups of key solutions

Reporter: Currently, Vietnam has basically controlled the COVID-19 epidemic, however, the progress of the epidemic remains very complicated with many long-lasting consequences. In order to continue to fulfill the assigned targets and tasks and better support people, employees and businesses, what solutions will the Vietnam Social Security deploy and implement in the near future, Mr. Manh?

VSS General Director Nguyen The Manh:

With the drastic direction and determination of the Government, the efforts of ministries, branches and localities and the consensus of the people and the business community, at present, Vietnam has basically and well controlled the COVID-19 pandemic, prevented spread in the community and facilitated gradual socio-economic recovery. According to the forecast of the International Monetary Fund in 2020, only Vietnam has the positive economic growth in ASEAN-5 and the scale of GDP ranks 4th in Southeast Asia.

However, the developments of the epidemic remains very complicated, especially in the world, so there will be long-term effects and consequences on our country. Therefore, the Vietnam Social Security determined in the coming time to focus on implementing 8 focus groups, including:

First, to continue to proactively and actively participate with ministries and branches to improve policies and laws on social insurance and health insurance; to propose to amend and supplement the regulations to suit the practical situation, ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of the people; to timely organize the effective implementation of new regulations on social insurance and health insurance, effective from January 1, 2021.

Second, to gather all resources and drastically implement synchronous, flexible and creative solutions to fulfill the goals set out in Resolution No. 125 of the Government to promulgate the Action Program to implement the Resolution. No. 28; Government's resolutions on the main tasks and solutions to implement socio-economic development plans, state budget estimates and solutions to improve the business environment and national competitiveness in the year 2021.

Third, to promote the development of participants in social insurance and health insurance, especially participants in voluntary social insurance and household-based health insurance, ensuring the completion of targets and plans assigned by the Government and the Prime Minister.

Fourth, to continue to work closely with the ministries and branches at the central level, political and social organizations, the Party committees and authorities at all levels to organize the implementation of the policies of social insurance and health insurance; to promote communication and propaganda of social insurance and health insurance to create a unity in leadership, direction and consensus in implementation so that cadres, party members and people understand the necessity, benefits, roles and meaning of the policy on social insurance and health insurance in the spirit of Resolution No. 28.

Fifth, to settle and pay regimes of social insurance and health insurance to ensure accuracy, timeliness and convenience for beneficiaries; to continue to renovate the modes of service and payment through public service organizations; to promote non-cash payment under the direction of the Government. To strictly manage the payment of short-term social insurance regimes, lumpsum allowance and unemployment benefits; to proactively control medical costs of health insurance to ensure compliance with regulations and estimates assigned by the Government in 2021. To strengthen specialized inspection of payment of social insurance and health insurance; to promptly detect and handle violations of the law, especially acts of evasion of payment, fraud, or taking advantage of the social insurance and health insurance fund.

Sixth, to continue to strengthen administrative reform, focusing on the reform of administrative procedures with the motto of considering the people and enterprises as the service center; to promote the application of information technology in professional activities; data linkage with ministries and branches; to complete the national database on insurance; to encourage and support people to use the digital social insurance application - VssID.

Seventh, to continue to consolidate and streamline the organizational structure and staffing; to effectively implement the Scheme of "Renovating and organizing the apparatus of Vietnam Social Security in the direction of streamlining, productive and effective operation" and Decree No. 89 of the Government defining functions, powers and organizational structure of the Vietnam Social Security; to build a contingent of civil servants and public employees of the whole industry with strong professional skills, dedication, dynamism and creativity in performing tasks.

Eighth, to implement assigning that ensures the principles of: evident people, clear tasks, clear processes and responsibilities; to further promote the role and responsibility of the head; to strengthen administrative discipline, public ethics and codes of conduct of civil servants and public employees, drastically changing working styles into serving participants and policy beneficiares, best facilitating for people and businesses.

An issue that has been of great concern by many workers in the COVID-19 pandemic is the unemployment insurance policy. As the agency implementing this policy, in the coming time, Vietnam Social Security will continue to organize the collection and spending of unemployment insurance regimes, manage and use the unemployment insurance fund in accordance with the Law on Employment and related regulations. In addition, the Vietnam Social Security will propose competent agencies to strengthen supervision of the implementation of unemployment insurance regimes to bring unemployed workers back to the labor market and reassess vocational training and job placement counseling for unemployed workers (both in terms of policy as well as effectiveness in organizing the implementation of vocational training policies, job placement counseling system for currently unemployed workers). Thereby, to propose to amend, supplement and complete policies on vocational training support, job recommendation and counseling for employees. To expand support conditions for employers to more easily access the regime of support for training, retraining and improvement of vocational skills qualifications to maintain jobs for employees. To provide more support other than vocational training. To renovate and improve the quality of vocational training and job placement counseling centers; to associate vocational training and job placement consultancy with the actual needs of enterprises and the labor market, etc. so that the UI policy can be more effective.

Continuing efforts to contribute to ensuring the social security of the country

Reporter: Closing a turbulent year and starting a new year with many goals and tasks that need to be completed according to the Central Resolutions in the implementation of policies on social insurance and health insurance, what message do you want send to the entire contingent of cadres, civil servants, public employees and workers in the Industry?

VSS General Director Nguyen The Manh:

With the spirit of solidarity, unity, sense of responsibility, determination and unceasing creativity, in 2020, all officials, civil servants, employees and workers of the Vietnam's social insurance industry have made great efforts to overcome difficulties and challenges and successfully complete the tasks assigned by the Party and people, making an important contribution to ensuring the social security of the country.

We have entered the year 2021 - the year in which the first goal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party's Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW on social insurance policy reform needs to be fulfilled. Accordingly, the whole country should strive to: Reach about 35% of the workforce in the age group to participate in social insurance, in which farmers and workers in the informal sector participating in voluntary social insurance account for about 1% of the working age; about 28% of the workforce in the age group to participate in unemployment insurance; About 45% of people after retirement age to be entitled to monthly pension, social insurance and social pension allowance; the rate of electronic transactions to reach 100%; implement online public services at level 4; reduce the number of transaction hours between the social insurance agency and the enterprise reaching ASEAN 4 level; the index evaluating the satisfaction of people participating in social insurance to reach 80%. These are all huge goals.

The Vietnam's social insurance industry will continue to strengthen solutions to better implement the policies of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance.

In order to successfully complete the assigned targets and tasks, on behalf of the Party Civil Affairs Committee and the Leaders of Vietnam Social Security, I promise to highly concentrate on the work of direction and administration, gather all resources and measures to effectively implement the assigned targets and tasks; in order to deserve the attention, direction and leadership of the Party, the National Assembly and the Government, the coordination of ministries, branches, and the people's trust.

I hope that, in 2021, all civil servants, employees and workers of the social insurance industry of Vietnam will continue to promote the tradition of solidarity and efforts to overcome difficulties, promote patriotic emulation, and successfully complete the assigned tasks and targets. To continue to improve governance capacity and effectiveness in implementing policies on social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance, ensuring the interests of participants; to establish achievements to welcome the 13th National Party Congress.

At the beginning of the new year, I wish all officers, civil servants, employees and workers of the Vietnam's Social Insurance Industry and their families health, happiness and success!

Reporter: Sincerely thank you, Mr. General Director!