KUALA LUMPUR, 10 August 2016: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) today hosts its annual International Social Security Conference 2016 at Aloft Kuala Lumpur Sentral, discussing healthy ageing and establishing age-friendly communities as well as encouraging engagement of the growing senior generation in the economic and social landscape.

The two-day conference, themed “Active Ageing: Live Long and Prosper”, is jointly organised with State Street, one of the world’s leading providers of financial services to institutional investors, with The Star as the media partner.

The conference, a hallmark event organised by the EPF, has attracted industry experts, opinion and thought leaders from around the world.  This year, the event brings together renowned speakers from Denmark, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia to discuss ways to optimise opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age.

Officiating the conference, EPF Chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said, “Being active refers to continuing participation in social, economic, cultural, community and spiritual affairs.  Senior citizens can still remain active and contribute to their families, peers, communities and nations after they retire from work.

“The proportion of the older people in Malaysian society is increasing rapidly and as a retirement fund, the EPF is working together with various stakeholders to look at ways to develop policies and legislation in areas relating to minimum retirement age, minimum wage, and employment policy, among others.”

Tan Sri Samsudin said that partnering with State Street gave EPF an excellent opportunity to network and tap into their global expertise on issues relating to social security. Active and healthy ageing is expected to be a major societal challenge and with this partnership, parties could work towards a common vision that values older people and their contribution to society, he added.

An additional agenda to the itinerary is a special Media Roundtable organised with The Star, where select speakers would be able to further deliberate, share knowledge and viewpoints, in an effort to increase public awareness and understanding on current issues related to social security.  A real-time survey on participants’ views on retirement will be conducted during the course of the conference.

The speakers at the conference include:

Papers presented during the event included Demographic and Social Changes: Impact Towards Retirement; Unleashing the New Retirement Paradigm; Reinventing Work and Retirement; Empowering Ageing with Technology; Adaptation of Technology for Independent Living; European Experience: Establishment of an Age-Friendly Community; Japanese Experience: Revitalisation of the Declining Population.