A proposal to raise the retirement age for officials and civil servants in Vietnam has been included in the draft of the country’s revised Labor Code.

The revised code will raise the retirement age for females from 55 to 60 and males from 60 to 62, according to Pham Minh Huan, Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, who confirmed the proposal.

The move is expected to prevent Vietnam’s state social insurance fund from running out of money due to the country’s aging population, the ministry, which drafted the code, explained.

The draft of the revised code is currently open for expert and public feedback, and is expected to be ready for submission to the lawmaking National Assembly in 2017, Huan said.

The question of raising the retirement age in Vietnam has long been in discussion, with Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung last Tuesday stressing in a regular government press conference that “elevating the retirement age for workers is an inevitable move having been made by many nations.”

“The statutory retirement age in our country has been in place for too long despite many social changes, including improved health and life expectancy of the population [to over 73 years],” Dung said.

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