A worker from Hải Dương Province's Social Insurance Agency talks about the benefits of participating in national social insurance to local residents. From this year on, May will be observed as a month to encourage all Vietnamese working people to participate in the national social insurance scheme. VNA/VNS Photo Mạnh Linh

From this year on, May will be observed as a month to encourage all Vietnamese working people to participate in the national social insurance scheme. Trần Hải Nam, Deputy Director of the Social Insurance Department talks to a correspondent from Nhân Dân (People) newspaper on the benefits of participating in the national social insurance scheme.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, what is the significance of working to raise the general public’s awareness of the benefits of participating in national social insurance?

On November 21, 2019, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc signed Decision No.1676 to observe May every year as the month for all Vietnamese people to participate in the national social insurance scheme. This is an occasion for public offices, organisations and the general public to participate in the scheme. On May 23, the Việt Nam Social Insurance Agency (SIA) launched a month to call on all people nationwide to participate in this scheme.

Can you elaborate on Decision No.1676?

In the year 2020, the SIA will develop a five-year plan (2020-2025) on how to bring the PM’s decision into life. For example, from 2021-2022, we will launch a mass communication campaign to raise the people’s awareness of the benefits of joining the voluntary social insurance scheme, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the negative impacts of COVID-19, in the first six months of 2020, almost all enterprises have had to narrow their production scale and lay off workers. Such decisions have had negative impacts on workers. This has become a challenge for authorities on how to achieve the goal of sustainable development of participants in the social insurance scheme in 2020.

However, we are confident such a challenge is only short term. When the pandemic is put under control, both in Việt Nam and abroad, we are confident when the national economy recovers we’ll have more people participating in the social insurance scheme.

Some people have been confused between the concept of voluntary social insurance and commercial insurance. What are the differences between these two concepts?

Quite many people have not fully understood the novel of the concept of the Vietnamese Government policy on social insurance. Recently we have conducted a survey on the general public’s awareness about the Government’s social insurance policy. Up to 70 per cent of people said they didn’t know about the policy and many people were confused about the concept of the Government’s policy of social insurance with commercial insurance. As a result, it has negatively affected the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA)’s efforts to mobilise the public to voluntarily participate in the social insurance scheme in the last few years.

With lessons learned from that, MOLISA has advised the Prime Minister to issue Decision No.1676/ QĐ-TTg on November 21, 2019, on the approval of the proposal on the comprehensive change in the content, format and communication methods to help people understand their rights and benefits when participating in the social insurance scheme.

Until now, up to 67 per cent of Vietnamese working people have not yet participated in the social welfare scheme. What should the MoLISA do to attract more working people to participate in the social welfare scheme?

Right now we should focus efforts on mass communication activities to raise the people's awareness on the benefits of participating in the social welfare scheme, particularly when they are getting old. However, for the time being, we should focus on activities to restore the national economy and business activities to generate more jobs for working people. This is the right way to increase the number of people participating in the social insurance scheme, both in the formal and informal working sectors. What’s more important, we should advise people who have participated in the social welfare scheme to continue to stay in the fund and not try to take a one-time social insurance payment right now. In the long run, I think that we should revise our social insurance policy to make it more attractive to participants._­VNS