‘Yekaterinburg retail food market has no niches available at the moment; there is a notion that they do exist and can be occupied, but this is, in fact, a mere illusion,’ Alexei Podolyako, CEO of Alliance Non-Commercial Partnership, reported to UrBC. ‘The arrival on the local market is currently performed in the make-way-for-me format, so if any new player comes up, they have to fight to get a share of the market. However, if this player can boast some impressive competitive advantages and is capable of using them properly, they will find their place in the sun,’ Mr Podolyako explains.

‘Bad roads in Sverdlvosk Region keep hindering our vehicles,’ Governor Eduard Rossel announced at a press conference today. The Governor says that even large cities don’t have enough junctions that could ensure congestion-free driving or safe pedestrian crossings. The good thing is that a few municipal organizations do have bypasses that allow the transit cars to avoid traveling through the busy city streets. Besides, a map of the regional villages and the surrounding roads is to be developed soon.

West-Siberian Metallurgical Industrial Complex (part of Evraz Group) has recently hosted a book fair devoted to communication culture as a factor in effective personnel management. The fair was targeted at improving the management’s skills in terms of handling the issues related to the company’s culture, and at teaching the executives to use modern personnel management techniques. All the visitors could look at the assortment of articles and books on corporate culture and personnel management by both Russian and foreign authors. The managers were also given a number of papers on

According to the report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affect the health of Sverdlovsk Region population, Rezhnickel Production Association increased its atmospheric emissions by 3,649 tons. Non-ferrous metallurgical enterprises normally make a significant impact on the state of the environment in the areas of their location, and in some cases they alter it completely to the degree comparable to changes caused by the presence of a ferrous metallurgical enterprise in the region.

‘Poor choice of lease holders and faulty design are the major problems of local trade centers,’ says Alexei Karavaev, chairman of Yekaterinburg Management Companies Council. ‘A lot of trade centers lack product zones, so kids’ clothes may rub shoulders with men’s wear for no apparent reason. Tenants duplicate each other, or, worse still, anchor tenants compete with each other,’ Mr Karavaev explains. ‘As regards the planning of the premises, there are some mistakes as well, for instance, in terms of location of stairs, elevators, and restrooms, although very soon these will become the factors

S7 Airlines (aka Siberia) has officially admitted owning money for air navigation services to Mongolian aviation authorities. ‘This debt, however, is being paid off in compliance with the schedule, and the Mongolian party agreed that it should not be used as ground for rejecting S7 the right to fly over Mongolia,’ reports the carrier’s press release. Mongolian aviation authorities did not let an S7 Airlines aircraft traveling from Beijing to Novosibirsk use their air area last Friday.

SKB-Bank’s easternmost office (located at 53a Microrayon 6) has been successfully operating in Tobolsk, Tyumen Region, for over a month. The office caters for both businesses and individuals. ‘Our loan offers appear to enjoy the greatest demand among Siberian people, as we are getting more and more new borrowers every day; this pertains to both express crediting schemes and the classic consumer loan known as Loan for a Friend. The micro-loan and mini-loans are also popular with the small and medium-scale businesses. The entrepreneurs of Tobolsk are beginning to understand the appeal of our

Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development has recently introduced a new office in Kopeisk, Chelyabinsk Region. This is the bank’s next step on the way to developing its regional network. The office is located right in the center of the city at 18 Kommunisticheskiy Ave. In this new office, individuals can get a loan or open a bank account in order to deposit rubles, U.S. dollars, or euros; exchange of currency or issuance of international payment cards or of Russian Union Card are also available here. A Western Union unit and an indoor ATM are provided. Businesses are offered accounts for

Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia’s state agricultural watchdog, limited the number of customs points for dairy products imported to Russia from the Ukraine at the Russian-Ukrainian border today. The only two places where the import is now allowed are Nekhoteevka, Belgorod Region, and Troyebortnoye, Bryansk Region, reports RosBusinessConsulting Information Agency. The decision was brought about by the fact that the regional officers of Rosselkhoznadzor kept reporting cases of violating Russia’s veterinary safety laws related to foods imported from the Ukraine. In some instances, for example, the dairy

The average existing home prices (per square meter of dwelling) in the center of Yekaterinburg (i.e. in Moskovskaya St., Chelyuskintsy St., Vostochnaya St., Dekabristy St., Belinskiy St., and Bolshakov St.) went up 4.39% on January30, 2007, compared with December 28, 2006, reports the Analytical Department of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The figure rose by 3.34% in Yekaterinburg’s most expensive residential area (Avtovokzal, Yugo-Zapadniy, Parkoviy, Botanicheskiy, Vtuzgorodok, Shartashskiy, ZhBI – downtown and the south-west and the south-east of the city), by 3.59% in the city’s second