SINGAPORE (TVBS News) – The Milken Institute is one of the world’s leading think tanks regarding free market solutions. Its ninth Asia Summit again showcases how private capital and the private sector can help solve the world’s problems.
“We would really want to help the impossible become possible,” Ambassador Curtis S. Chin told TVBS commentator Wenchi Yu on the sidelines of the summit on Wednesday (Sept. 28).
The chairman of the Milken Institute Asia Center believes that the solution to the world’s problems cannot just be one more World Bank's loan or one more Asian Development Bank's (ADB) grant.
“That can be part of it,” the former U.S. ambassador to the ADB said. “But it has got to be reforms and government policies, but also mobilizing really the power of economies, the power of the private sector, to deliver on the solutions that we need.”
“Governments, in my view, are not necessarily solving global problems together now, because of all these interests and conflicts,” he added. “I think the private sector is looking to solve the problems in collaboration with the government, in collaboration with each other.”
Asked by Wenchi Yu how this summit can accomplish that, Chin remarked that the theme of this year’s conference, “The World Transform,” is also “about how the world has not changed.”
“The world has changed. But at the same time, and sadly, we’ve seen a return to really war in Europe. We’ve seen a return of pandemics, you know, from like, 100 years ago, so in many ways the world has changed, but also it’s not changed,” he continued.
With this observation in mind, Chin explained that the Milken Institute brings together people and institutions with a lot of capital and great ideas. “Great leadership is this notion that you might have an idea for a solution for a new business or a great philanthropy; but unless you have access to capital, sometimes it just stays a great idea,” he said.
“And so what we’re trying to accomplish here, and I’ve seen it happen, you know, my nine years here and longer, is bringing together people with money, people with ideas and coming up sometimes with a pilot solution, that’s something that can then be scaled up, if you have the capital,” he concluded.
