The National Pension Service said it will hold the 6th Annual Training Course on Public Pension in Asia/Pacific for six days from June 17 to 22 at the National Pension Service headquarters in Jeonju and the Center for International Cooperation in Jung-gu, Seoul, jointly held by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and UNESCAP.
Marking its sixth anniversary this year, the international training session was driven in 2014 based on the benchmarking demand for Korea's national pension system by countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
The reason why countries in the Asia-Pacific region want to benchmark Korea's system is because the national pension system has been expanded and implemented to the entire national pension fund 11 years after its implementation, and as one of the three major public pension funds in the world, it operates about 675 trillion won (as of the end of March 2019) in a stable manner, the NPS official said.
In addition, the NPS has the largest number of countries in Asia that signed social security agreements (37 countries), protecting the rights and interests of Korean companies and people who have entered foreign countries.
Twenty policy makers and working-level officials from 13 countries, including Nepal, Vietnam and Indonesia, who have been attending the training program every year since 2014, visited Korea to learn about Korea's experiences in expanding and developing the national pension system.
In particular, Indonesia, Nepal and Vietnam, the participants for the sixth consecutive year, benchmarked the nation's pension system management model to achieve reform of their countries' pension systems and improved services.
"We have a great experience in expanding and settling the pension system to the entire nation in 11 years, the shortest period in the world. It is expected that the know-how of the NPS's management will be of great help to countries in the Asia-Pacific region, which hope to establish the pension system," said Kim Sung-joo, chairman of the board of directors.