Twenty-three people from 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region participated in an international training course to share the experiences, expansion and operation of the National Pension Service’s (NPS).
The fourth rendition of the international training course on public pensions in the Asia/Pacific took place from May 29 to June 2 at the NPS Seoul Office International Cooperation Center under the joint sponsorship of the OECD Korea Policy Center, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP). The participants were policymakers, experts and working-level officials from 14 countries. The participating countries were Nepal, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Brunei, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, Cambodia, Thailand, Pakistan and the Philippines.
The training program is designed to transfer the NPS’s success story about the expansion of coverage to all Korean people and its settlement in the shortest-ever period of time in the world with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, helping those countries evolve their respective pension systems.
Recognizing the prominence of a training program that took place three times last year, 10 participants, or 43 percent of those who participated in the latest training course, came to the NPS on their own dime, without financial support from the OECD Korea Policy Center. Among the participants paying their own way was Jamiliah Binti Awang, a general manager with the Employees Provident Fund in Malaysia. Awang said the Korean National Fund is credited with efficient management of subscribers and benefiters. He said he wanted to learn about the NPS’s efficient operation over the whole spectrum, ranging from subscriptions to pension payments. The latest training course was arranged based on demand from recipient countries, so it comprised of working-level subjects necessary for the operation of pension systems in real-world scenarios.
The course included the NPS’s development of the National Pension connected with ICT, reflecting a rising concern from the Asian and Pacific countries and OECD and UN ESCAP experts’ lectures on pension regimes in ODCD countries, pension systems of the Asian and Pacific countries and institutional reform and the NPS’s lectures on qualification, premium collection, payment, ICT, contributions and support services for the retired.
The trainees made an observation tour to the NPS Seoul Call Center and NPS Seoul Nambu Regional Headquarters Office and visited Namsan Hanok (Korean) Village in downtown Seoul to experience Korean culture. The NPS, which has operated similar international training programs for the Asia-Pacific region since 2014, is credited with sharing Korea’s experience on the National Pension with the region. In particular, Indonesia, Nepal and Vietnam, who had participated in the training course on three occasions, are said to be developing their own pension systems after taking cues from Korea’s National Pension.
Korea introduced the pension system in 1988, and it took only 11 years to expand coverage to all Koreans, the shortest-ever period, compared to 35 years in Germany, 33 years in the United States, and 20 years in Japan. In a welcoming speech at the course’s opening ceremony, Acting NPS President Lee Won-hee said, “With the NPS’s marking the 30th anniversary of its founding and the 30th anniversary of the introducing the National Pension this year, the NPS’s 30-year knowhow is hoped to contribute to the development of pension systems and institutions of the training course participant countries.” “This training course is hoped to help countries in the Asia-Pacific region continue to promote cooperative ties through information and personnel exchanges by establishing a close networking among them,” said Nah Sung-woong, head of the Social Policy Headquarters at the OECD Korea Policy Center.
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