Former US President Bill Clinton expected that his country would return to the old-fashioned economy after the current crisis.

"In the US, I predict we will go back to old-fashioned finance to build a very modern future," he said yesterday as he was concluding the two-day Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference in Hong Kong. "People should grow their economy with products and services that people need. It's not healthy to have finance leading the economic growth of the country."

The former US president said the financial crisis will not strike Asia as hard as it does to the rest of the world because Asia has remedied its structural problems in the 1997 crisis.

"I think it is likely that whatever happens will not be as bad comparatively as it is in other places of the world," he said.

The former US president also urged governments, business groups and NGOs to keep taking measures to improve public livelihood even amid the financial crisis.

He also pointed out the problems arising from uneven distribution of wealth and development between urban and rural areas in Asia amid the prosperity.

"We cannot allow the current economic crisis to be an excuse not to go forward on all these fronts. The truth is that it should cause us to re-double our efforts to go forward on all these fronts," he said.

During the meeting, the CGI members said an estimated $185 million would be spent for more than 10 million people.

Some of the beneficiaries include 715,000 children with education opportunities, 260,000 adults with new job skills, 250,000 girls and women with empowerment projects and more than 3.5 million people with greater access to health services.

Clinton reiterated his call for a partnership between government, business groups and civic society. Community members should also be involved, he said.

"There has to be ways to ensure mass participation. You cannot achieve the objectives you want on the contribution of millionaires only," he said.

He added that profitability is also a criterion for sustainable development.

Speaking at a working session of the meeting, Kung Fu movie star Jet Li said Chinese people are more keen on volunteer services and charity as the nation becomes more prosperous.

The 45-year-old star said people in China didn't even get enough to eat and could only help others through encouraging words before the nation embarked on its reforms.

Li, who established the charity One Foundation, said numerous volunteers are ready to come forward now, as was reflected in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake in May.

(HK Edition 12/04/2008 page1)