An importance and further necessity of unity of Asian nations were mainly discussed and reconfirmed in this conference. Among many other speakers, Mechai Viravaidya’s idea “privatization of poverty reduction” seemed different and exceptionally outstanding. Eradicating poverty has always been difficult for any developing country; yet, solving it has already been proven to be a necessary step for a country’s further development. A real problem is, as Mechai Viravaidya brilliantly pointed out, not poverty itself but the way the government handles it. He successfully specified three reasons for a complete lack of sustainability of the government’s welfare program. The first reason is that the government’s welfare program does not “empower” poor people. As the second reason, it makes them “more dependent”. Lastly, it does not give them “new knowledge”. It is all true, but what is really the most effective way of solving poverty problem then? His answer is not welfare or religion but BUSINESS. “Business people are the only people who can get poor people out of poverty.” In short, the best solution, he argues, is what he calls as “privatization of poverty reduction,” which enables a country to gradually accomplish in solving poverty problem while achieving an economic development. This synergistically desirable outcome, of course, needs a help of the government. Giving tax reduction, recognition, and publicity attention are all important incentives which only the government can offer to those companies that are involved in the project. With this idea of allocating the government as follower position and business as leader position, he suggests to fully use business and market system to make more and more companies to involve in the project with a help of government’s regulations.

As the first speaker, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, said in her speech, community building is a long process, especially in Asian region in which many things such as language and religion vary from one country to another. One of the Asian countries’ most unique features is perhaps a huge gap in people’s living standard. Mechai Viravaidya’s inspiration appears to be an effective way in order to increase people’s living standard in developing country in the region for further strengthening the unity of Asian community as a whole.