HANOI, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is striving to have social insurance coverage of some 50 percent of its population by 2020 and that of health insurance hits some 90 percent, said Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam on Tuesday.
Dam made the remarks at a conference held in the capital Hanoi, Vietnam's state-run news agency VNA reported on Tuesday.
According to Dam, health insurance currently covers over 79 percent of the population, while only 25 percent of the population joined social insurance. The portion is too small due to existing mechanisms as well as residents' habits, the official said.
In Vietnam, around 12.4 million people joined compulsory state social insurance as of the end of July 2016. Meanwhile, some 10.57 million are covered by unemployment insurance, Deputy Director General of Vietnam Social Insurance (VSI) Nguyen Luong Son said at the conference.
Dam said the insurance sector should intensify administrative procedure reform in order to attract more people to take social insurance.
Dam urged the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs to come up with solutions to get more than 2 million workers under short-term contracts to join social insurance, VNA reported.
