The Non-Mandatory Central Provident Fund System (the System) will be implemented on 1 January of next year. In order to deepen the community’s understanding about the System, the Social Security Fund (abbreviated to FSS in Macao) visited a number of public utility companies in July and August in order to lobby employers for participation in the System. After that, the FSS will start to hold briefing sessions for local employees in order to promote the contents of the new law to them, and to encourage employees to care about their own retirement protection and to participate actively in the non-mandatory central provident fund system. 

In July and August, the FSS visited Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau, Teledifusão de Macau, Companhia de Electricidade de Macau, Macao Water, Sociedade de Transportes Colectivos de Macau, Transmac and New Era to introduce the contents of the System to their leadership. Since the public utility companies have generally set up private pension plans for their employees already, the FSS wants to learn more about the existing retirement benefits for employees through these visits, and, in particular, to exchange ideas on how to interface the private pension plan with the central provident fund system. The companies took an open attitude to the participation in the System, and some of them even wanted the FSS to hold briefing sessions for their staff, so as to deepen their understanding about the new system, and the FSS will actively respond to this. 

Law No. 7/2017 (Non-Mandatory Central Provident Fund System) was approved in detail by the General Assembly of the Legislative Assembly on 31 May 2017, and the Law was published on 19 June 2017. After the Law had been published, the FSS started immediately to actively promote the System to the community. To date, the FSS has met with the representatives of gambling enterprises, fund management entities, Association of Banks, various associations, social welfare institutions and public utility companies, in order to lobby employers for participation in the System. Later, the FSS will begin to hold a number of briefing sessions for introducing the non-mandatory central provident fund system to the representatives from all walks of life, so as to deepen the understanding of the community about the related law, thus enhancing their desire to participate in the System. To know more about the related law, members of the public may visit the thematic web page of the non-mandatory central provident fund system at www.fss.gov.mo/en/sites/cpf.