Social security, job creation, social insurance payments and labour export were the key issues raised by members of the public on an online website launched by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, yesterday.

Meanwhile, the min-istry's head, Pham Thi Hai Chuyen, said the Government was mobilising all resources to ensure sustainable poverty reduction, despite tightened expenditure.

"The Government this year earmarked 930 billion VND (44.6 million USD) to support electricity fees for poor households, 765 billion VND (36.7 million USD) for social security and provided 6,000 tonnes of rice for more than 8,000 households in disaster-hit provinces, particularly poor rural areas," she said.

The Government will also continue to invest in social security programmes, such as the 5.8 trillion VND (278.4 million USD) it has earmarked for health insurance cards for the poor, 3.5 trillion VND (168 million USD) to reduce school fees and 1.85 trillion VND (88.8 USD) on housing for the poor.

In 2011, the business community donated 350 billion VND (16.8 million USD) to improve infrastructure in poor districts.

Chuyen said the country had recorded an annual poverty reduction rate of 5 per cent.

"Unusual natural disasters could easily put people in remote and mountainous areas in poverty again," she stressed.

Regarding job-generation, Chuyen said 12.6 percent of businesses had closed down in the last year.

The ministry has urged local authorities to make it easier for the unemployed to access loans from the national employment fund.

Tran Thi Thuy Nga, head of the ministry's Social Insurance Department, said the ministry had urged relevant agencies to ensure businesses were contributing to the social insurance fund.

Meanwhile, Le Quang Trung, deputy director of the ministry's Employment Department, said the ministry would clamp down on illegal foreign workers.

There were 78,400 foreign workers in Vietnam . Of those, 30 percent did not have work permits. Furthermore, 5,500 were working on travel visas, the labour ministry said.

On the subject of labour export, Chuyen said the country planned to send 90,000 workers abroad this year and 100,000 in 2012.

The main markets for Vietnamese labourers are Taiwan , Malaysia , the Republic of Korea and Japan ./.