‘The decision to put limits on the import of Byelorussian sugar to Russia was taken because of substantial losses incurred by home producers for the last three years due to oversupply of Byelorussian sugar on the market. Imported sugar was almost thrice as cheap as the home-made one,’ Commercial Director of Rosbakaleya Ltd. Alexander Shevchenko said to UrBC. ‘Byelorussia’s four sugar plants appear to be overproducing, so they import almost everything they make to Russia. This sugar is tested at our customs; some samples are used for lab tests, which means there are certain additional costs

BrokerCreditService looked at the state of events in the consumer sector of Russian market of shares in January-March 2007; the shares of companies dealing in consumer goods appear to be doing much better than the stock market on the whole (the RTS index only went up .7% since the beginning of the year). A lot of such producers came up with very impressive annual reports for 2006 and drew up statements regarding their development strategies for 2007. ‘There were, however, a few sad occasions. The report produced by Kalina (RTS: KLNA), the cosmetics giant, turned out to be the first quarter’s

The average existing trade area prices (per square meter of dwelling) in Yekaterinburg went up 13.59% (from 86,043 RUR on December 28, 2006 to 97,737 RUR on March 27, 2007), reports the Analytical Department of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate. These prices went up 20.12% (from 99,211 RUR in December 2006 to 119,172 RUR in March 2007) in the downtown area (i.e. in Moskovskaya St., Chelyuskintsy St., Vostochnaya St., Dekabristy St., Belinskiy St., and Bolshakov St.). The figure rose by 27.22% (from 81,829 RUR to 104,099 RUR) in Yekaterinburg’s second most expensive residential area (Avtovokzal,

The average pay rose by 32.2% against January 2006 and now amounts to 12,009 RUR a month, First Deputy Minister for Economics and Labor Nikolai Bespamyatnikh announced at Sverdlovsk Region Cabinet meeting. ‘The region’s industrial production index went up 8.4% compared to a year earlier; so did the amount of investments (28%) that now comes to 9.5 billion RUR,’ Mr. Bespamyatnikh added. On the other hand, Ural Federal District’s law-enforcement agencies have reported more than 4,000 violations related to paying salaries since the beginning of the year. However, the disclosure of these abuses

‘Most Russian business is done in Moscow; unlike the U.S. or Europe, this country does not have any geographical evenness; there is the official capital and the so-called cultural capital (Saint Petersburg) that is trying to be like Moscow, and there are provincial markets,’ says Alexei Mogila of Moscow-based Penny Lane Realty. ‘At the moment, regional office sales markets resemble that of Moscow a few years ago: offices are being put up at a slower pace than trade centers and shopping malls, and quite often, these are the old Soviet buildings that used to host bureaucracy that are used for

URSA Bank held AGM on April 12, 2007; the meeting resulted in approval of the annual report and of the annual balance sheet as well as the profit and loss statement. The attendees also looked at the report by the inspecting committee for 2006 and agreed upon Altai Audit Consulting Ltd. as their auditor for 2007. The shareholders elected the new Board of Directors: Andrei Bekarev, Kirill Brel, Yuri Vavilov, Ruben Vardanyan (Troika Dialog’s Chairman of the Board), Gueorgui Vassilev (Clariden Leu SA CEO), Oleg Kirillov (Director of SM. CAPITAL GROUP PTY Ltd.), Alexander Taranov, Arvid Turkner

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel appointed Ivan Rabtsevich head of State Construction Surveillance Administration in Sverdlovsk Region, reports the Governor’s press officer. Mr. Rabtsevich used to be involved in military construction in the capacity of the district’s Deputy Commander-in-Chief for construction. The Governor laid special emphasis on the fact that for the first time the issue of technological monitoring was raised to the regional level, which vests the new executive with particular responsibility.

President Vladimir Putin met members of the Russian Government on April 16, 2007 to discuss the report of First Deputy Head of Government Sergey Ivanov on the agenda of the meeting of the Commission on Problems of the Defense-Industrial Complex under the Russian Federation Government to be held in Yekaterinburg on April 19, 2007, reports the spokesperson for the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region. Mr. Ivanov said the meeting would be attended by a number of governors and industrial enterprises executives and was mainly targeted at finding the ways of implementing the achievements of Russian

On Monday, Ural Airlines’ top managers received a cable from head of Rosaviation Evgeniy Bachurin regarding the anxiety the agency feels in terms of lack of understanding between the carrier and Koltsovo airport management. ‘I suggest that Koltsovo should try to host and service Ural Airlines’ flights in the summer of 2007 in compliance with the so-called historic slot schedule. The head of the local division of Rosaviation must see to this being done properly,’ the cable says. Kolstovo airport executive announced at the 4th air travel conference Urals’ Open Sky 2007 on April 13, 2007 that

Moody's Investors Service (the international rating agency) gave SKB-Bank the long-term B2 and the short-term NP ratings in terms of foreign currency accounts and E+ rating in terms of financial stability. At the same time, Moscow-based Moody's Interfax Rating Agency (wholly controlled by Moody’s) assessed the bank on the national long-term Baal.ru scale. SKB-Bank was rated Russia’s 79th largest bank assets-wise in the third quarter of 2006 and Sverdlovsk Region’s third largest bank. SKB-Bank offers its services to both individuals and businesses or organizations and tries to set up