He was speaking at a virtual conference of the VSS on March 3.

According to the report delivered at the conference, Viet Nam has 16.03 million people holding social insurance cards as of February. Among those, 14.98 million joined the compulsory social insurance scheme.

Social security agencies of 35 provinces and cities recorded an increasing number of new participants, including Ha Noi, Thanh Hoa, Tra Vinh, Nghe An and Thai Binh.

The total social and health insurance fee collection of the whole sector reached VND52.6 trillion (nearly US$2.3 billion).

About 1.05 million people voluntarily participated in the social insurance scheme, covering 60.8 percent of the target. Ten local social security agencies reported an increasing number of voluntary social insurance participants compared to 2020 including Nghe An, Thai Binh, Phu Tho, Son La and Ha Nam.

About 86.4 million people hold health insurance cards nationwide, an increase of 728,500 compared to January 2021.

The number of health insurance card holders in 14 localities including Hung Yen, Kon Tum, Thai Binh, Lao Cai and Son La increased over the last year.

The VSS management board in charge of insurance records and collection asked local social security agencies to take comprehensive measures to develop the network of participants and minimise debts, at the same time, hold dissemination workshops regularly to encourage people to voluntarily join the insurance scheme.

Dissemination should be held in various forms, making it suitable for each group. The local social security agencies have been requested to assign specific weekly and monthly quotas to collection agencies and suspend contracts with collection offices that do not meet the conditions of facilities and capacity of collectors.

VSS Deputy General Director Tran Dinh Lieu speaks at the event.

At the conference, representatives of local social security agencies shared work they have done in the first two months of the year and proposed solutions to complete tasks in 2021.

As an area hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hai Duong Province faces a number of difficulties in collecting insurance fees and expanding the network of participants.

Doan Thi Trinh, Director of Hai Duong Social Security Agency, proposed the VSS issue an instruction on allowing local businesses to suspend payment to the retirement and survivorship funds.

Regarding the targeted number of insurance participants, she said the assigned targets must be relevant with the practical situation in each locality. The target on the number of households participating in health insurance must be built based on databases detailing households which have not participated.

At the same time, it is requested that the post office upgrade management software, promptly update the number of social insurance and health insurance participants.

Phan Van Men, Director of the HCM City’s Social Security Agency, said the city faced challenges in collecting insurance fees because many labourers have not returned to the city or changed jobs after the lunar New Year holiday. About 20,000 foreign workers have not been able to return due to the pandemic.

The city’s social security agency will consult with the municipal People’s Committee to assign quotas to district-level people’s committees and step up dissemination work, focusing on potential groups as well as promoting inspections to detect violations.

VSS deputy general director Tran Dinh Lieu ordered relevant agencies to focus on building the target for 2021 and for a longer term of three to five years ahead.

Specialised agencies must co-ordinate with local social security agencies to keep a close watch on the practical situation and remove difficulties.

An overview of the conference.

He noted that besides promoting IT application in administrative procedure reform, the agencies must step up supervision to improve operation quality. Insurance collection databases must be updated on the VssID application with an aim to have 70 to 80 per cent of social insurance card holders using the app.

He urged the agencies to promote initiatives, learn from experience of the past year to make achievements in the new year in order to increase the collection level, reduce debts, expand the participation network and soon realise 2021’s targets, laying the foundation for the future./.