Aviacon Zitotrans’s IL 76 flying from Ufa to Beirut had to go back to its airport of departure after one of the plane’s engines started acting up, the spokesperson for AVS Group (Aviacon Zitotrans is its member) said to UrBC. During the flight, the chip detector of one of the engines indicated some trouble and, according to the flight manual, in a case like this the crew must stop the engine. The carrier decided to bring the plane back to Koltsovo airport where the conditions are favorable for looking into the incident in all the detail. The Ural division of State Aviation Surveillance (part

There were 13 large food enterprises in Yekaterinburg on January 1, 2007. Six companies closed down last year, namely, Alvis (a tobacco factory), Vinchampagncombinat and Zvezda (two local wineries), Nord (a cold storage facility), Seafood Delicatessen, and Aquarius (a beverage maker). Apart from the operating large enterprises, there are also 70 smaller companies, which means there are 10 more of them than in January 2006, reports the press officer of the city council. These businesses have been operating in compliance with the strategic project referred to as Production of High Quality Foods

‘Underdevelopment of small business in the field agriculture is our mistake,’ Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Alexei Vorobiev said at the meeting devoted to the region’s success in the socio-economic field and in the implementation of the national top-priority projects in 2006. At the same time, the share of small businesses in the total business turnover amounted to 31% (500 billion RUR, which is 25% better than in 2005); the number of people employed by small businesses exceeded .5 million, with 19,000 job vacancies created in 2006. 164 million RUR (which is 2.7 times more than in

‘We haven’t investigated the affairs of Metro in terms of their having banks empowered to deal in factoring yet, since we haven’t been ordered to do so by our seniors, but if we are, we shall naturally inspect them,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region division of Federal Antimonopoly Service said to UrBC. Federal Antimonopoly Service has recently completed the first stage of checking how well the food chains comply with the antimonopoly legislation when dealing with their suppliers and, in particular, when there exists a factoring agreement. The Service monitored a number of chains,

Ural Airlines keeps offering discounts: it has just reduced the price of the tickets to Israel by 70%. Since this airline is the only carrier that performs direct Yekaterinburg -Tel Aviv flights, Ural Airlines is trying to make the trip to the Holy Land more affordable to the local population, reports their press officer. Anyone who buys a return ticket (Yekaterinburg – Tel Aviv – Yekaterinburg) between February 19 and June 20, 2007 will only have to pay ?319 plus the fuel and airport fees. The direct flight is available every other Wednesday and is performed on Airbus A 320. The company’s

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralFinPromBank to nongovernmental profit-making organizations for a term of 31 to 90 days went down 12% (from 217,910,000 RUR to 191,408,000 RUR) in October-December 2006.

Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency annulled licenses of five insurers (Moscow-based Alfa Insurance Ltd., license С № 3960 77, registration No. 3960; Bask-Plus Insurance Company Ltd. based in Belovo, Kemerov Region, license 3520D, registration No. 3234; RAU-Garant Insurance Company based in Arkhangelsk, license 3935D, registration No. 1491; Rostok-MSK Medical Insurance Company Ltd. based in Irkutsk, license С № 2544, and Yekaterinburg-based Farn, license 3980D, registration No. 3653) and suspended the license of one insurance company (RiskMedia Management Insurance Company Ltd.. (license

The students of Ural State Architectural Academy were awarded for winning in the competition for the best architectural design of Academic construction area of Yekaterinburg. The project known as Meridian was considered the best, and its authors have been given 90,000 RUR in recognition of this. The authors of the second best projects (The Room for Modern Life and A Series of Dwelling Houses) received 60,000 RUR each. The third place was divided among Green City, The Center of Residential Area, and The Flow: Terraced Houses. The author of Green City received a special award and was invited to

Machine-Building Plant located in Electrostal, Moscow Region, produced and stored six experimental fuel assemblies for BN-600 power generating unit of Beloyarskaya nuclear power station, reports RosAtom. These assemblies include two items coated with new radiation-resistant steel known as EC164. Their testing is expected to prove that this new alloy is going to be effective for production of parts used in the reactor core (this covers both BN-800 and the BN-1800 currently at the developmental stage). RosAtom is going to put up a new high-power reactor (BN-800) by 2015, which means it would be

Evraz Group obtained the European Commission’s permission to control Highveld Steel and Vanadium Corporation Limited (provided it complies with a number of requirements). According to the spokesperson for Evraz, the decision was made by the European Commission at an early stage of considering the case in terms of compliance with the antimonopoly law. Evraz is going to sell some of Highveld’s vanadium-production facilities and related assets, including some Vanchem facilities in WitBank, the South African Republic, their share in Mapoc mine, and a 50% share holding of South Africa Japan