‘Tiny banks are limited in the scope of their activity and are now having a hard time keeping their share of the market. At the same time, the Central Bank of Russia has been imposing more and more regulations lately. This is why a great number of such small banks are openly or secretly preparing to sell and are even negotiating with their business partners (namely, large federal banks),’ Chairman of SKB-Bank Vladimir Pukhov says relating to the growing popularity of bank mergers and takeovers in 2006. ‘In one or two years’ time, we’ll see the how these negotiations will result in the

According to the bank’s official report, Severnaya Kazna lowered the interest rates on deposits at call: the Golden Ladder deposit now yields 7.5% to 10.5% a year (or 1.5% to 2.5% less than it used to), the foreign currency deposits will bring .5% to 1% less profit (the annual interest rate on dollar accounts now comes to 6%-8.5%, that on euro accounts amounts to 5% to 7.5%, depending on the amount of money placed and the amount of time the money is kept with the bank). The one-year-long Premium deposit offers the interest of 5% a year, or 5% less than before; if you’d like to invest your

‘No instances of bird’s flue have been discovered in Sverdlovsk Region so far,’ Alexei Feoktistov, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Agriculture and Food said to UrBC regarding the recent outbreaks of the virus in some parts of Moscow Region. ‘We don’t think this is likely to happen in Sverdlovsk Region. Our poultry farms are monitored on regular basis, and there also exists a special committee headed by Sergey Chemesov, the Minister for Agriculture and Food. Mr. Chemesov is personally taking care of the question,’ Mr. Feoktistov explained. ‘We haven’t taken any additional

‘No information related to investigative actions involving UralTransBank can be made public yet, but we do have some results,’ says Valeriy Gorelikh, the press officer of Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs. Mr. Gorelikh noted that the public wouldn’t get access to any data regarding the investigation for a while, and it was unclear as of yet when the officers were going to produce a report on the actual results of the inquiry. The Economic Crimes Division of Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs sent a group of officers to UralTransBank’s headquarters last Thursday.

‘Following McDonald’s bombings in Saint-Petersburg yesterday, Carnival Trade and Entertainment Center is going to take additional security steps in the whole area and in McDonald’s in particular,’ Marketing Director of Carnival Alexei Malygin said to UrBC. ‘We have a united security service at the moment that takes care of the whole mall. In addition, McDonald’s has its own security personnel,’ Mr. Malygin said. A bomb went off on the premises of Saint-Petersburg-based McDonald’s yesterday. Six people were injured, including two children. As regards Yekaterinburg, there are two McDonald’s

Severouralsk bauxite mine got its first portion of ore from Little Red Riding Hood mine. SUAL Group had invested 710 million RUR in the project, reports the company’s press officer. Little Red Riding Hood mine is a result of merging mine 14-14-bis with mine 15-15-bis (the latter has not been operating since January 1, 2007 due to using up all the ore deposits). The launch of Little Red Riding Hood aims to retain SUAL’s ore-extracting capacity as well as to cut transportation costs and to enhance the labor safety (the grooves of the original mines were badly damaged by underground waters and

According to Kommersant newspaper, Sverdlovsk Region division of Federal Antimonopoly Service finalized the case of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo airport. The Service decided the airport would have to pay 16.75 million RUR to the federal budget; in the meantime, the Service believes this sum only comes to 2.9% of all the profits made by the airport illegitimately, (these profits are estimated at over 500,000,000 RUR). Sverdlovsk Region division of Federal Antimonopoly Service declared the airport was violating the competition protection law as early as the end of 2006. Yet as Koltsovo was

Rosstat (the state statistics agency) looked at success of Russian industry in January 2007. The industrial output went up 8.4% and the manufacturing activity output by 17.3%. The mining operations rose by 4.2% compared to one year earlier; production and distribution of electricity, gas, and water dropped by 10.5% as the demand for heat was relatively low due to warm weather. The manufacturing industry output grew by 17.3%; this is a record figure, outstripped only by that for December 2003 when the growth rate came to 23.1%. The increase in the manufacturing activity output (compared to a

‘Aeroflot-Russian Airlines is the only Russian company to hold the IOSA-IATA certificate. Ural Airlines is one of the first companies that have applied for IOSA audit. We expect all carriers operating in Russia and the CIS to undergo the procedure eventually,’ says Dmitriy Shamraev, the regional representative of IATA in Russia and the CIS. Ural Airlines announced it was going to get the certificate last year. IOSA is one of IATA’s programs aimed at enhancing flight safety; it complements the international civil aviation program and seeks to provide good quality safety routines. ‘IOSA

Customs and law-enforcement officers of Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region, found some sportswear with Puma, Adidas, and Reebok logos on them while examining one of the local shops in the course of the special counterfeited goods inspection. The clothes looked decisively fake, and their owner was unable to prove that he had the right to actually sell branded goods of those companies. Yet the sole trader was deliberately storing and selling pirated sportswear in order to make a profit, thus violating the rights of Adidas Ltd., Reebok International Ltd., and Puma-Rus Ltd. – the exclusive owners