The Standing Committee for the Coordination of Social Affairs (SCCSA) agreed today (9 January) to the proposal to raise old-age pension to 3,000 patacas.  The Social Security Fund (FSS) said that the subsequent follow-up work will be carried out as soon as they receive the official text of the submissions, and hope that the SCCSA can continue to discuss the contribution rise proposal as quickly as possible.

The FSS submitted the “Proposal to raise the old-age pension, disability pension, social assistance benefits and contributions” to the SCCSA last December.  This proposal aims to get the operating principles of the social security system back on track.  It suggests raising gradually over the next four years the contribution from employees and employers and the old-age pension, thus raising the contribution-to-benefit ratio (balanced contribution ratio) from the current ratio at about 10% to 35%, and then followed by subsequent annual review.  In response to the concrete situation of the social and economic development, it is suggested to make a balanced adjustment to both contributions and benefits in order to make the old-age pension level constantly keep up with the speed of economic development, and at the same time, ensure the sustainable development of the social security system, with the support of stable contributions and government funding.

In the contribution rise proposal, it is suggested to raise the monthly contribution from 45 patacas to 100 patacas, while the ratio of contributions from employees and employers to be adjusted from the current ratio 1:2 to 1:1.5, i.e. the monthly contribution from employee is 40 patacas and that from employer is 60 patacas, thus raising the ratio of total contribution to balanced contribution to 15%.

On the other hand, the SAR Government also plans to inject an additional capital of 37 billion patacas to the FSS between 2013 and 2016, first to respond to the community’s aspiration for old-age pension rise and at the same time stabilize the financial position of the FSS, so as to facilitate the implementation of the above reforms.