14 January 2009 Media Contact

EFG-US-20090114-1 Jeff Mustard

EurOrient Financial Group
818-206-5322
MEDIA ANNOUNCEMENT jeff.mustard@eurorient.org

Converting “Slumdog Millionaire” into Global Development Agenda: Award-

Winning Film Reveals the Impoverished Living Conditions of Mumbai City

LOS ANGELES, CALIF.: 14 January 2009 – “This multiple-award winning film is brilliant on
many levels,” says Mr. Ron Nechemia, the Chairman and Founder of EurOrient Financial Group, the
world’s first private-sector global development financial institution, which is accredited by the United
Nations General Assembly on Financing for Development. Mr. Nechemia believes that this film provides
unprecedented opportunity to raise global public awareness to the challenges facing humanity in the 21st
Century and more particularly to poverty in its multi demotions, such as poor health, illiteracy, inadequate
schooling, social exclusion, powerlessness and gender discrimination. Says Mr. Nechemia: “Through the
commercial success of this extraordinary film, director Danny Boyle successfully manages to tell this
wonderfully uplifting tale against the backdrop of the horrific living conditions in Mumbai, India, one of
the world’s most populated cities, but one which severely lacks the most basic services to meet
fundamental human rights and needs.”

Kaplana Sharma, Deputy Editor of The Hindu, India’s Daily National Newspaper based in Mumbai
confirms the lack of basic humanitarian needs in cities like Mumbai: “Travel to any city in India and you
will find two common images – women lining up with pots of various shapes and sizes waiting for water,
and men and children defecating in the open. Karma, who is also the author of Rediscovering Dharavi:
Stories from Asia’s Largest Slum (Penguin India, 2000) has observed: “Almost half of Mumbai’s 12
million people live in slums or dilapidated buildings. They are located on open land, along railway tracks,
on pavements, next to the airport, under bridges and along the city’s coastline. The basic services of clean
water and sanitation have still to reach millions of people in India even as it boasts of an accelerating rate
of economic growth.”

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“The City of Mumbai and its living conditions serve as a secondary character to the film and the story that
is being told,” says Mr. Nechemia, who has earned the reputation in the world’s international financial
community as the founding father of private sector development banking for funding development in
emerging markets and economies in transition. “Unfortunately, this City is a character that is all too
familiar in hundreds of other cities in hundreds of countries around the world and not limited only to
India.”

According to Mr. Nechemia, “We are dealing with a situation of devastating poverty in emerging market
countries and economies in transition which for a long time has been treated as an internal affair, and yet as
the poverty and dexterity deepening now-a-days and the numbers of people living with less than one USD$
1 a day rises, it is extremely difficult for all of us to pretend that it is not happening.”

Mr. Nechemia believes that this film can, and will, serve as a platform to increase awareness and hopefully
stimulate dialogue with civil society, governments and international community about the critical need for
financing for development and for poverty reduction initiatives in emerging markets and economies in
transition. According to Mr. Nechemia, this film makes clear the glaring disparity between massive wealth
and systemic poverty, all of this within as a little as one block; high-rises overlook mega shanty-towns
lacking fresh water or sanitation services. It reflects the all too prevalent cultural practices of gender
inequality, including the abuse of children, drug trafficking, AIDS, pollution and conflict. It peels back the
layers on societies of this nature and the lack of effective (local) governments; that rule of law does not
apply, people as well as even seemingly reputable members of society (powerfully reflected in the story-
line of this film) rely on criminals, gangs and mob-controlled city governments to accomplish objectives.
“We see a vicious cycle in which poverty breeds other ills, which in turn make it harder to escape from
poverty” says Mr. Nechemia.

About Mr. Nechemia

Mr. Ron Nechemia is a founding member of the EurOrient Financial Group (“EurOrient”) and its various
affiliate development financial institutions and the founding father of private sector development banking.

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Mr. Nechemia's unique wealth of knowledge has earned him many international awards and recognitions.
He is frequently been invited to consult and to advise in Special High-Level Policy Dialog to express its
views and to share experiences on financing for development and on trade and investment related issues in
front of the international community bilateral and multilateral organizations such as the Bretton Woods
Institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),United Nations General
Assembly, United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the World Trade Organization
(WTO). Mr. Nechemia is a member of the UNCTAD/ICC Investment Advisory Council and recognized as
a foreign financial expert by the State Administration of Foreign Experts, the People’s Republic Of China
and he is frequently been invited to advise and lecture on behalf of governments such as the United State
of America, Republic of the Philippines, the People's Republic of China, South Korea, and the State of
California Department of Energy just to name a few.

About EurOrient
EurOrient Financial Group is a private sector global development finance institution accredited by the
United Nations General Assembly on Financing for Development. The company’s principal objective it to
reduce global poverty and promote sustainable economic growth. EurOrient invests in projects and
programs that promote social development, build human capacities, and address host government priorities
for investments in physical infrastructure that promote and enhance social development. These projects
include roads, transportation and communication systems, water, sanitation and other types of investments
with social development outcomes such as improved quality of life and increased human knowledge and
skills. The mission of the EurOrient Financial Group is to support the economic and social development
efforts of the less developed countries as they, in particular, seek to achieve the Millennium Development
Goals ("MDGs").

EurOrient at a Glance:

Headquarters: Los Angeles, California

Website: www.eurorient.org
CEO: Mr. Ron Nechemia

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Contacts

Media Contact: Jeff Mustard, Spokesperson for the President and the Chair Person of the Board of
Directors of the EurOrient Financial Group

Tel: 818-206-5322 –

Email: jeff.mustard@eurorient.org

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