DCC Depository Clearing Company withdrew 19.66% of the shares it had of Kalina Concern JSC (thus going down from 13.19% to 32.85% of its piece of t he company’s pie). Three other nominee shareholders, namely, Deutsche Bank, ING Bank and Citibank increased their portion of corporate shares to the total of 73.38%, which is a 18.958% increase compared to the former 54.422%. According to the company’s spokesperson, Deutsche Bank now owns 8.992% of shares as opposed to the former 11.12%, ING possesses 51.78% compared to the former 36.85%, Citibank holds 10.48% compared to the former 8.58%.

‘We received 1563 employer applications asking to register their foreign workers in 2005, most of these applications concerning the continuation of existing agreements. Over 20,000 foreign workers were given jobs,’ reported Head of Yekaterinburg Employment Agency Job Allocation Department Margarita Vilesova. ‘The majority of foreign workers are involved in construction industry, namely, 8,641 people. Most of them come from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and China,’ Ms Vilesova said.

Regional energy-managing company Sverdlovskaya Energeticheskaya Upravlyaushaya Kompaniya JSC announced an extraordinary general meeting in absentia. The agenda include approving of interim liquidation balance sheet and of the liquidation balance sheet proper. The deadline for submitting filled-in ballots is February 13, 2006.

The consulate of Vietnam is going to be introduced in Yekaterinburg, reports the Governor’s Information Department. The consulate will provide for Sverdlovsk Region, Republic of Altai, Republic of Bashkortostan, Republic of Tatarstan, Republic of Udmurtia, Krasnoyarsk and Perm Territories as well as for Kemerov, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Ohrenburg, Samara, Tomsk, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk and Chelyabinsk Regions.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel met senior managers of Wimm-Bill-Dann OJSC (one of Russia’s largest dairy enterprises) yesterday. The company bought a dairy in Pervouralsk in 2005, so Chair of the Board Sergei Plastinin shared some of the reconstruction plans and projects concerning new technologies with the Governor. Wimm-Bill-Dann OJSC sees its future as more than simply processing milk to produce dairy products; they are also thinking of setting up their own dairy farm network with supporting fodder facilities. Governor Eduard Rossel suggested possible acquisition of a number

According to the data presented by Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry, the output of vodka and liquors produced by Ekaterinburgskiy Likerovodochniy Zavod (Winery of Yekaterinburg) PLC comprised 385280 decalitres in 2005, which exceeds the figures for 2004 by 74%. The winery produced 33060 decalitres of vodka and liquors in December 2005 (as opposed to previous December’s 36100 decalitres, of which 3,000 decalitres had not been sold by January 1, 2006.

IGN Rt, a Hungarian enterprise, is about to set up a joint venture for assembling oil-electrical engines and gas plants with 0.5 to 1 megawatt capacity with Energan-Ural Ltd. As Energan-Ural GD Alexei Morosov explains, these will be Russian power units that will be used in the assembling process, including the units produced by Ural Diesel Engine Works, with generators and automated machinery supplied by the leading foreign makers. It is, however, in the company’s plans to replace all the foreign accessories by their locally made counterparts. IGN Rt GD Robert haraika says that the decision

‘The wholesale combustive-lubricating supplies prices have been artificially increased by the producers,’ says Director of Combustive-Lubricating Supplies Department of Computer Ltd. (part of Tatneft filling stations network) Evgeniy Yanenko. ‘The prices went up after more fuel had come to be used due to the cold weather. Refineries normally do this to increase their profits, but if one discards the cold-weather factor, the retail prices are not supposed to go up until February,’ Mr Yanenko reports. The data presented by courtesy of Kortes information agency indicate that Russian wholesale

The wholesale oil prices have gone up by 3% to 4% since the beginning f January, reports the spokesperson for Sverdlovsknefteproduct JSC (part of Sibneft JSC). The price of AI-80 petrol, for instance, had gone up by 6.7%, or 820 RUR per ton, the price of AI-92 is now 670 RUR per ton, or 4.6% higher, AI-96 and diesel oil are now being sold 70 RUR per ton/0.4% and 180 RUR per ton/1% more expensively. As Marketing Director of Sverdlovsknefteproduct JSC Pavel Sotulenko says, the company isn’t going to announce any other price increases in January: ‘We’ve already been buying oil at new wholesale

The annual natural gas import in the region has been going up steadily from 15.3 billion cubic meters in 1999 to 18.1 billion cubic meters in 2005, and 120 to 150 new natural gas consumers requiring 600 to 800 million cubic meters a year are likely to emerge in the Mid-Urals within the next two years. The agreement between Sverdlovsk Region Government and ITERA Holding PLC states that the regional consumers should receive 71 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the years 2005-2008. Yet the consumption forecast indicates that people are going to need 4.8 billion cubic meters more than this