A nationwide competition on reform initiatives for administrative procedures and electronic transactions in the field of social, health and unemployment insurance was launched in Hanoi on June 18.

Initiatives should maximise time and cost savings in filing and processing e-payments for social, health and unemployment insurance or amend the existing regulations on administrative reform.

In order to garner wide-spread participation in the competition, the media was asked to promote it strategically and honour outstanding individuals along the way.

During his speech at the launch ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who is the Head of the Government Steering Committee for Administrative Reform, praised Vietnam Social Insurance (VSI) for its keen determination to support the administrative reform process, which will have a significant impact on workers and businesses.

The Deputy PM praised the sector for shortening formal procedures by 100 hours and cutting procedures from 263 to 115.

In preparation of the upcoming integration into ASEAN, the VSI has reduced the time it takes to process social insurance payments to 49.5 hours, which is on par with the ASEAN-6 average and marks a step towards the ASEAN-4 average level. E-transactions are expected to replace manual transactions in 90 percent of organisations and businesses nationwide, he added.

The Deputy PM called upon the VSI to collect feedback from the public and closely cooperate with the Ministries of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs; Health; Defence; and Public Security, as well as the Bureau of Administrative Procedure Control.

He also demanded that VSI work harder to remove red tape within the sector.

The award ceremony for the competition is slated for December 2015.

All entries should be submitted electronically to thicaicachTTHC-BHXH@vss.gov.vn or posted to VSI headquarters at 7 Trang Thi street, Hanoi.

Further information can be found at www.baohiemxahoi.gov.vn.-VNA