Viet Nam ranks first in ASEAN in terms of spending on social welfare, according to Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung. 

Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung speaks at the
debate session of the 13th National Party Congress,
Ha Noi, January 27, 2021. Photo: VGP

Speaking at a debate session of the ongoing 13th National Party Congress, Dung said the ratio of expenditure to GDP reached 21%.

Sustainable development of the society, improvement of workforce capacity, and guarantee for social progress and equality is the strategic task in which people are placed at the center of the national development process.

Dung went on to say that the living standard of 99.7% people with meritorious service is equal to or higher than the average level of others in the same residential areas.

Viet Nam has been widely recognized by the international community as a success story in poverty reduction with the poverty rate dipping to 2.75% in 2020 from 70% in 1990.

Viet Nam is the first 30 pioneering countries in the world and the country in Asia in adopting multi-dimensional poverty approach.

It is also one of the countries with the lowest unemployment rate and has witnessed positive shift of labor structure as partly evidenced by the significant decrease of workforce in agriculture, forestry and aquaculture from 45% in 2015 to 32% last year.

Regarding human capital index,  Viet Nam has joined the high human development group based on the United Nations’ Human Development Index, and risen one spot to 117th out of 189 economies in the index. 

The country’s score has risen by 45 % in the past 30 years, according a report by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) that ranks economies based on life expectancy, education, per capita income, gender gap, and poverty.

On insurance, Dung said social and healthcare insurance has become a key pillar of the nation’s social welfare policies, adding that over 90% of Vietnamese have joined healthcare insurance, up 12.7% compared to that of 1995./.