Hai Phong’s journey of building social welfare for citizens
Hai Phong city is presenting a vivid ‘picture’ across many fields at the National Achievements Exhibition. One of the most striking aspects for visitors is the city’s outstanding achievements and policies in social welfare.
People as beneficiaries
Visitors to Hai Phong’s booths at the National Achievements Exhibition are impressed by not only a dynamic, creative, modern, and rapidly developing city but also by its humane, sustainable, people-centered social welfare policies.
Nguyen Van Trien, a resident of Dong Da ward (Ha Noi), said: “Hai Phong truly stands out nationwide for its pioneering social welfare policies. For example, the city took the lead in waiving tuition fees for students. Its healthcare system has expanded significantly in both scale and quality. Poor households and families struggling with housing have benefited greatly from the city’s support policies. All of these further affirm that Hai Phong’s people are truly enjoying the fruits of the city’s development.”
Hai Phong has consistently pursued the goal of bringing a prosperous and happy life to its citizens. The city’s well-founded, humane, people-centered decisions have steadily realized the principle: “Investment in social welfare must advance economic growth.”
A hallmark achievement of the city in social welfare is the elimination of makeshift and dilapidated housing. Between 2020 and 2024, Hai Phong built and renovated 11,146 houses with support costs totaling over 400 billion VND. In 2025 alone, the city provided support for 1,763 houses, including 1,165 homes of people with meritorious service and martyrs’ families, and 598 others of poor and near-poor households.
Since 2022, the city has supported around 16,000 cases annually, with total funding exceeding 380 billion VND. Meanwhile, the People’s Council of the former Hai Duong province issued Resolution No. 37/2024, which supported members of poor households and those who had just escaped poverty. Thanks to this, 6,640 members of 4,685 poor households received assistance worth a total of 39.3 billion VND, reducing the number of poor households from 6,287 to 1,602. These policies have created favorable conditions for people to stabilize their lives and invest in production and business.
Strengthening the social welfare system
It can be affirmed that Hai Phong’s social welfare system is being continuously consolidated, expanded, and built on increasingly solid foundations. The test of this system was clearly seen during the global COVID-19 pandemic, when the city’s health sector proactively, flexibly, and effectively took preventive measures. Vaccination coverage reached nearly 100%, and more than 200 mobile health stations were deployed to treat patients at home, helping to reduce fatalities and maintain stability.
The city’s healthcare system has grown robustly, with 100% of health facilities covered by health insurance now connected to the national insurance database. By August 2025, Hai Phong had 13 private hospitals in addition to the public system, serving the healthcare needs of over 4.7 million residents.
The two main pillars of the social welfare system, social insurance and health insurance, have been steadily improved in both policy design and implementation. After 15 years of enforcing the Health Insurance Law, the policy has developed significantly, proving its appropriateness and sustainability as a financial foundation for healthcare and progressing toward universal health coverage. The health insurance coverage rate has risen rapidly, from only 48% in 2009 to 96.18% today. Citizens’ rights under health insurance have always been guaranteed.
The city has also introduced policies to boost universal welfare coverage. Hundreds of thousands of people have benefited from support policies for health insurance premiums; special policies for poor, near-poor, and newly out-of-poverty households (2022–2025); and additional support for voluntary social insurance premiums in Hai Phong.
HOANG XUAN - TRUNG KIEN