‘The current condition of workers taken to hospitals from the construction site can be characterized as stable. We are going to have the results of the microbial flora test ready tonight, and, if these results don not alarm the doctors, all of IKEA employees will be allowed to leave the clinic,’ the spokesperson for municipal clinic № 40 Marina Ruvinskaya said to UrBC representative. ‘There are 126 patients out of 155 workers with food poisoning in the hospital at the moment. The rest of them took unauthorized leave without waiting for the results,’ Ms Ruvinskaya added.

Russian Expo Arms 2006, the international arms exhibition, was closed up on July 15, 2006. It was attended by over 200 enterprises from 34 Russian regions and 14 foreign countries. This has been the fifth exhibition so far, with the event taking place every two years at the range of Nizhniy Tagil Institute of Metal Testing. Among the exhibits were military equipment, arms, ammunition, maintenance facilities, different kinds of cloth, armor, and special accessories.

RusRating agency raised the short-term credit rating of Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development and classed it as stable. ‘The increase in rating indicators is due to the bank expansion resulting from a merger with Sverdlsotsbank, building up its share of the market as well as reducing the number of trusted affiliated companies and diversification of the bank’s liabilities,’ explains RusRating analyst Larissa Makarenko. Among the growth-restraining factors is a high share of related party loans in the bank’s assets accompanied with a meager contribution of the related parties to the bank

‘Last Wednesday (July 12, 2006), some builders employed by Korai, a Turkish company, to work at the construction site of IKEA store and MEGA shopping center in Yekaterinburg, went down with food poisoning. Korai is an independent enterprise that is not part or division of IKEA,’ reports the spokesperson for the Swedish company. ‘Korai had arranged the catering with an outsource company and now has to look into the causes of the poisoning. The results of lab tests carried out by the laboratory of municipal clinic № 40 and the epidemiologic services revealed no signs of bacteriological

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the doubtful consumer debt to Ural Treasures Bank CJSC has gone up by 34% (from 104.908 million RUR to 140.601 million) within the six months of 2006. As for the period of January to May 2006, the consumer debt experienced the growth of 22% (from 104.908 million to 127.655 million RUR).

According to the Central Bank of Russia, arrears of credit payments by individual entrepreneurs to UralTransBank have gone up by 11.7% (from 7.554 million RUR to 8.440 million) within the six months of 2006. As for the period of January to May 2006, the arrears of payments went up by 7% (from 7.554 million to 8.118 million RUR).

Russian market of shares appears to be rather flattened at the moment. Most of the blue chips grew 1.3% to 3.9% cheaper at 12.30 PM Moscow time; RTS average went down by 1.3% and comprised 1,465.7 points, MICEX average decreased by 2.5% and reached 1,280.4 points. The shares of RAO UES of Russia (RTS: EESR) went 1.6% cheaper at MICEX, the shares of LUKOIL (RTS: LKOH) went 2.3% cheaper, the shares of Rostelecom (RTS: RTKM) – 1.8%, the shares of SberBank of Russia (RTS: SBER) – 2.8%, the shares of Tatneft (RTS: TATN) – 1.3%, the shares of Norilsk Nickel (RTS: GMKN_ - 3.2%, the shares of

‘The shortage of legally produced vodka caused by the changes to the production accounting standards and import and trading regulations is more likely to be felt by the wholesalers rather than retail outlets. According to the data I have, the retailer may be affected some time around the New Year’s Eve,’ said the director of UKM Supermarket Ltd. Valentina Rudakova. Yet Novie Izvestia newspaper reports that vodka shortage will emerge in many Russian regions as early as the second half of August, which will lead to a dramatic increase in the cases of poisoning caused by drinking various alcohol

‘Even though the charter flights to Egypt come within Israeli-Lebanese war zone, our company has been performing them on regular basis. We do not even have to take extra safety steps as the measures we have already taken meet the safety requirements on a flight like this,’ PR Director of TransAero Airline Sergey Bykhal said to UrBC representative. ‘We’ve transferred our passengers through war zones before; thus, we’ve been taking people to Israel since 1993, and we kept performing flights even when the war was at its height. We naturally had to change the routes sometimes, but, altogether,