Director-General of the Vietnam Social Security Nguyen The Manh 

Its overall goals include developing a flexible, diversified, multilayered, modern and internationally-integrated social insurance system. Those are important orientations, laying the foundation for the development of the social security system and policies.

By 2021, it targets to have 35 per cent of labourers at the age of participating in social insurance to have cards. The farmers and informal employees participating in voluntary social insurance are set to account for about 1 per cent of the workforce.

About 28 per cent of the labour force are expected to join the voluntary social insurance network, according to the resolution.

On the occasion of the Lunar New Year, director-general of the Vietnam Social Security (VSS) Nguyen The Manh speaks to the VSS portal on the sector’s goals in 2021.

Looking back on the previous year, could you give us an overview of the results and achievements VSS has gained in 2020, which included a lot of challenges in implementing the social and health insurance policy?

The COVID-19 pandemic has left profound and far-reaching impacts on the socio-economy of all countries, and it is still complicated. The Vietnamese economy, which is open and internationally integrated in a deep manner, has suffered a number of impacts, seriously affecting the socio-economy.

As soon as the pandemic broke out, the Government adopted specific solutions involving the participation of the whole political system to take drastic actions and reaching consensus and solidarity of the entire people. The Government has set dual goals of fighting the pandemic, at the same time maintaining socio-economic development and ensuring social security. The Government and relevant agencies have offered support packages and taken practical measures to increase the resistance of businesses, help them gradually adapt to the new normal.

As a Government agency in charge of implementing social insurance and health insurance policies - two main pillars of the social security system, the VSS has proactively and closely followed the instructions of the Government, ministries and national steering committee on COVID-19 prevention and control. In particular, the VSS took a number of measures to support people and businesses to overcome difficulties caused by the pandemic. All public services at level 4 (sending applications, receiving and returning results) are conducted online on the national public service portal. Pensions and social insurance benefits are paid through ATM accounts and the banking system. The insurance payment in the retirement and survivorship funds covered by enterprises is allowed to be suspended or delayed to ensure the best interests of people participating in health insurance.

In November 2020, VSS launched the app "VssID - Digital Social Insurance" on smartphones with many utilities to save time, costs and reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection. It allows people to look up social insurance and health insurance policies online, avoiding direct interaction and satisfying people and businesses.

Despite the adverse impacts of the pandemic, thanks to creative communication solutions, the VSS still achieved positive results in terms of expanding the social and health insurance network.

By the end of 2020, the social insurance coverage has been expanded with more than 16.1 million people participating, reaching 32.6 per cent of the workforce in the age of participating in insurance.

Among those, nearly 1.1 million people participated in voluntary social insurance, almost doubling the figures of 2019, increasing by 1.2 per cent compared to the target set by Resolution 28 and rising by five times compared to 2015.

About 88 million people joined the health insurance network, accounting for 90.85 per cent of the population, exceeding 0.15 per cent of the coverage target set by the Prime Minister in the Government’s Resolution No 01 and exceeding 10.85 per cent compared to the target of the 12th National Party Congress’s Resolution and Politburo’s Resolution No 21.

The settlement of regimes and policies on social insurance and health insurance is implemented in a timely manner, with a modern, flexible and creative management method, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as storms and floods in central Vietnam. The VSS has promoted electronic transactions, online public services and online payment, which help shorten time and save costs for beneficiaries.

In 2020, the VSS paid premiums in nearly 134,000 cases which enjoy monthly social insurance benefits; paid sickness, maternity, convalescence and health rehabilitation premiums to nearly 9.6 million people.

Nearly 167.3 million people were offered with medical services under the health insurance scheme. Over 3.2 million people received monthly pensions or allowance in cash or via personal accounts.

Social insurance policies are proving efficient, helping labourers overcome difficulties. Illustrative Photo

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unemployment insurance policy helped hundreds of thousands of workers have financial resources to overcome the difficult period and maintain their lives. The policy also helped employers avoid financial pressure because they did not have to pay severance allowances to employees. The State saved budget for not having to spend money and also time on developing policies and making procedures to pay the allowances. In 2020, more than 1 million people nationwide received more than VND16 trillion of unemployment insurance, an increase of 32.7 per cent over the same period in 2019.

The VSS has overcome challenges to complete the assigned tasks and reaped positive outcomes. However, the adverse impacts of COVID-19 are expected to last in the long term. Will that prevent the VSS from realising the goals of Resolution 28?

COVID-19 had serious impacts on the implementation of social insurance and health insurance policies. Many enterprises went bankrupt, narrowed down production and cut down incomes of labourers. The VSS faced difficulties in expanding social insurance coverage and in many other aspects.

This difficulty has been mentioned, analysed and clarified in Resolution No 28. Accordingly, the system of policies and laws on social insurance have not kept up with socio-economic development, and have not adapted to the population aging and the emergence of new industrial relations. The expansion of social insurance participants has not been fully developed while coverage of social insurance increased slowly. The number of people enjoying one-time social insurance increased rapidly. Evasion of payment, delayed payment of debt, fraud, and profiting from social insurance funds has not been addressed. Pension and survivorship funds are at risk of imbalance in the long term. Unemployment insurance policy is not really associated with the labour market, has focused much on the formal sector, and has not had suitable policies for the informal sector.

The above-mentioned limitations resulted from many reasons, of which the main reason is a lack of drastic direction from a number of committees and authorities, low efficiency of State management and loose compliance with the law.

Some employees and employers are not fully aware of the roles, purposes and meaning of social insurance. The effectiveness of inspection, examination, supervision and violation handling in the implementation of social insurance policies remains inadequate. The policy dissemination work has not attracted employees to participate in social insurance.

In the process of organising and implementing policies on social insurance, the VSS has identified some shortcomings in this field as follows:

-The current system of social and health insurance policies and laws has revealed a number of shortcomings and problems during the implementation process, but they have not been adjusted, amended and supplemented. Some documents guiding the implementation of the Law on Social Insurance and Health Insurance are still slow to be promulgated or amended and supplemented in time.

-The current social insurance policy misses a number of groups who have needs and abilities but have not yet been legally allowed to participate, such as: individual business householders, unpaid business managers, employees working under flexible conditions. Voluntary social insurance policy is not really attractive to the participants.

-The number of people participating in social insurance has just topped over 16 million (accounting for about 32.6 per cent of the workforce in the age group). More than 30 million people of working age, accounting for about 67.4 per cent of the labour force, have not participated in social insurance. If there is no change, in the future, the number of elderly and people at the end of working age who do not have social insurance will be very large, creating pressure and burdens on families and society, negatively affecting social security policies.

-Although the number of people participating in voluntary social insurance has witnessed a sudden increase over recent years, the statistics are still low compared to the potential. The number of people receiving one-time social insurance is still increasing every year, affecting the goal of expanding social insurance coverage among labourers.

-Abusing and profiting from the social insurance and health insurance funds is still occurring in many localities. Compliance with the law in some units and enterprises is not strict. Insurance evasion, debt payment, insufficient payment of enterprises, especially small and medium enterprises is still common.

Those challenges require reforms to make social insurance a major pillar of the social security system, gradually expand the network and look towards universal social insurance coverage in relevance with socio-economic development, making an important contribution to social progress and equity.

What solutions will be taken by the VSS in 2021 and the next years to meet the goals?

In order to achieve the goals of Resolution No 28, we need the engagement of Party committees, local authorities at all levels, social insurance organisations, enterprises and citizens.

 Viet Nam Social Security continues to develop many solutions in implementing social insurance policies to expand coverage and better serve participants. Illustrative Photo

Firstly, in 2021, the VSS will promote consultation with the Government and the National Assembly on reform of social insurance policy, building a multi-layered social insurance system, adjusting the conditions in terms of social insurance participation time. The pension is calculated based on the principles of payment-benefits to ensure fairness, sharing and sustainability. We will strengthen links between social insurance policies, focusing on market factors in unemployment insurance policies. The VSS will design various voluntary social insurance packages so that employees have opportunities to choose suitable ones to join and switch to compulsory insurance when eligible.

Secondly, the VSS plans to closely co-ordinate with ministries, Party committees at all levels, local authorities and political, socio-political organisations to implement social insurance regimes and policies; to develop the social insurance industry in line with the country's socio-economic conditions and synchronously with the development of social services.

Third, we will continue to innovate, improve quality and efficiency of social insurance communication in the new situation; reform content and forms of dissemination work towards professionalism with the right focus and making it suitable for each target group, focusing on the groups who are voluntary social insurance participants and labourers working in industrial parks and export processing zones.

Fourth, we will expand the network of social insurance participants, especially those participating in voluntary social insurance; offer social insurance and health insurance benefits for participants; strive to fulfill the goals and plans assigned by the Government and the Prime Minister.

The fifth solution is to strengthen, review and simplify administrative procedures in implementing social insurance and health insurance policies on the principle of simplicity and convenience for organisations and individuals.

Furthermore, the VSS will promote IT application and upgrade infrastructure, professional software and a centralized database. We will expand the provision of online public services at level 4 and plan to replace paper insurance cards with electronic cards.

In addition, we will step up inspection on law compliance to detect violations.

Regarding external relations, the VSS is willing to promote bilateral and multilateral co-operation with regional and global partners and attract international resources.

We want to promote international training to develop human resources so that the staff can meet the requirements and perform key tasks.

Lastly, we will continue to streamline personnel and improve the quality of social security staff, focusing on improving their capacity, professionalism, sense of responsibility, and attitudes to satisfy customers.

In 2021, the VSS targets 35.2 per cent of labourers in the age of participating in social insurance to have cards. About 28.5 million labourers are expected to join voluntary social insurance./.