So far, Russian Copper Company has invested $210m into its joint venture with Kazakhmys Corporation set up for the development of Koktausskoye deposit (named in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution) in Kazakhstan, reports their spokesperson. The opening ceremony of a processing plant at the deposit took place on September 7, 2006. The ore mining and processing enterprise located there now includes an open-cast mine, a processing plant that mainly deals in ore concentrate, and a plant that produces cubic-shaped chips from the overburden. The construction of this complex

The amount of tickets booked and sold online now makes up 3% of all the tickets sold by Ural Airlines in Yekaterinburg. The figure only constituted 1% three months ago. Should the regional clients keep up with this pace of mastering online booking, the amount of tickets sold online may reach the average global figure of 30% by February 2007, or within a year of the introduction of the service. E-ticketing in Russia is affected by the limited ability of the airports to support online booking technologies and by the companies being reluctant to invest as well as by the lack of the necessary

Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank rated 134th in the Top 300 rating held among Russia’s largest all-purpose banks in first half of 2006. The data provided by RosBusinessConsulting Information Agency that carried out the rating procedure indicate that Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank scored 1,296 points. The agency used information on the bank’s net wealth, quick assets, owned capital, balance sheet total, loan and deposit portfolios, and profit, reports the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank.

The dismantling of the old 100/2000 exchange has been almost completed at Vanadium Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise of Kachkanar (part of Evraz Group). The company has been upgrading its telephone communication facilities since 1999. Now the old exchange is to be replaced by the new digital automatic switching center (type 64). The final stage of replacements started on September 25, 2006. It will result in canceling some 1,000 phone numbers and re-creating them in the digital exchange format. This will mainly affect the subscribers located within the production sites of the enterprise

The recent visit of French Minister for Foreign Trade Christine Lagarde to Yekaterinburg resulted in the official proposal to set up a French Consulate in the city. The Consulate will start operating on January 1, 2007. In the meantime, one representative of the French legation will start working as early as tomorrow. What is more, another result of the visit was the decision to significantly build up French export to Russia.

Vanadium Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise of Kachkanar (part of Evraz Group) has recently put into operation the new portals meant for dismantling and assembling wheel-motor blocks. These portals are a complex set of mechanisms that raise the quality of repairs and reduce the time needed to do them. Prior to the introduction of the portals, the dismantling and assembling procedure was performed manually and was extremely time-consuming. Now it is fully automated. The portals were designed based on the special order of the enterprise and include all-purpose equipment that allows to repair

The public prosecution authorities of Ural Federal District have assessed the results of environmental monitoring of the regional businesses. It appears that the environment of the Urals is still in very poor condition, which has been proved by over 6,500 instances of companies violating the environmental legislation in 2006 alone. According to the spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor, the violations occur all over the region and involve misuse of forestry, water bodies, and other resources as well as their pollution; besides, companies ignore environmental norms when constructing and using