Establishing a sustainable social welfare system is an urgent issue in East Asia and ASEAN, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The Vietnamese PM underlined the issue during his opening speech at a seminar discussing social development in ASEAN and the creation of a sustainable social welfare system, in Hanoi on October 26.

“Adverse social impacts stemming from the recent global economic crisis, world hunger and increasing numbers of middle-income earners pose numerous issues that need to be handled at both macro and micro levels and on a national and regional scale,” said the PM.

He also stated that sustainable growth requires issues related to energy and food security, environment and non-traditional security matters to be settled.

“Determination and reforms in each single economy are inevitable, however this is not enough. Nations needs to adopt integrated policies and step up regional and global cooperation. The social roles and responsibilities of individuals and businesses are important to enforce and ensure sustainable development,” PM Dung told the participants.

He said that the economy, a rise in the number of middle-income earners, social welfare, responses to natural disasters, energy security and climate change, are of special interest to Vietnam and are significant during the creation of socio-economic development strategy and social welfare strategies in the 2011-2020 period.

In the draft of its 2011-2020 socio-economic development strategy, Vietnam has tried to make breakthroughs in institutional reforms, infrastructural developments, the quality of human resources, social welfare, natural resources, environmental protection and responses to climate change.

PM Dung added that he hoped ASEAN, East Asian and American researchers and policy makers at the seminar will discuss the issues frankly.

He expects them to raise the publics awareness of the need to forge a sustainable welfare system for East Asia and ASEAN and detail solutions and policies on the issue.

The seminar was co-organised by the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, the Asia Centre at the US’s Harvard University, the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) and the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

It was attended by ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan and the Director of Harvard University’s Asian Centre Professor Arthur Kleinman, and economists and academics from economic institutes around the world.

Apart from discussing the seminar’s main topics, the participants also examined Asian and global economies before and after the 2008 financial crisis, the production system in East Asia and challenges to sustainable development./.