'Our park of municipal GAZel vans is being gradually replaced with some newer foreign ones. This is something we absolutely must do in order to avoid all these car crashes that are happening now,’ Yekaterinburg Transportation and Traffic Committee’s leading expert Sergey Temnyakov said to UrBC. According to Mr. Temnyakov, GAZel’s design is definitely not perfect, which is why passengers keep getting hurt. 'A GAZel van costs about 360,000 RUR, and it’s simply naïve to hope you can buy any kind of safety with that. Ford vans, for example (the ones we are buying to renew our van park),

'The recent changes in the consumer rights protection legislation are bound to hit the car dealing business quite badly. I think there will definitely spring up plenty of fraudsters who will be taking advantage of the new amendment; that is, they are going to demand discounts, threatening to give the car back otherwise, and in general, people are just going to return more cars back to dealers now,’ says Tatiana Bulavina from the Marketing and Advertising Department of Delta Center (Mercedes Benz’s official Yekaterinburg dealer). The new amendment to the Consumer Rights Protection Act is

'Russia New Growth Fund's acquisition of URSA Bank’s shareholding can be descried as a wise portfolio investment,’Unicom Partner Universal Investment Company’s Asset Management Director Vitaliy Kalugin said to UrBC. 'I believe the bank’s new stakeholder expects the holding to grow at least 40% more expensive every year,’ he added. Troika Dialog broke the news in the course of a press conference organized by URSA Bank’s top management and the bank’s business partners in Interfax’s press center. It was announced that Russia New Growth Fund managed by Troika Capital Partners (TCP)

SKB-Bank keeps building up its share of Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region’s market through introducing more and more offices. The bank’s newest addition in the area was set up in Raduzhniy, Nizhnevartovskiy Region. SKB-Bank’s new customers can use the entire range of banking services for legal entities and private individuals (including both ruble and foreign currency transactions) in the new office. The place is open for businesses from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekdays; individuals are welcome from 9 AM to 7 PM on weekdays and from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekends. The office is located at 28 2nd

'Taking part in UC RUSAL Social Welfare Projects Center’s programs helped a lot of schoolchildren attain self-actualization; some of them were able to reveal their leadership qualities, proved their independence, and learned to be held responsible for their actions. Besides, project work gave them a chance to master their analytical and problem-solving skills. Kids looked into problems, elaborated ideas and looked for partners who’d help them make their projects a reality. And then they could enjoy the results and outcomes of their projects, too,’ UC RUSAL’s local press officer Roman

RusRating affirmed credit ratings of 43 Russian banks on November 2, 2007. SKB-Bank’s credit rating was affirmed at BB-, which is better than what quite a few Moscow banks were given. RusRating first estimated SKB-Bank’s rating at B+ in August 2006 and promoted it to BB- in July 2007. The agency’s analysts say SKB Bank’s rating is based on the fact that SKB-Bank is a medium-sized provincial bank (one of the largest in Sverdlovsk Region, though) that has been cooperating intensely with the region’s authorities for a long time. In addition, it can boast a well-developed subsidiary network, an

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 31 to 90 days went down by 65.86% (from 255.187 million RUR to 87.131 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

The value of net assets of Energy - Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by 4.12% between November 1, 2007 and November 2, 2007. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 4,177,544.88 RUR on November 1, 2007 to 4,005,637.64 RUR on November 2, 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Plato Bank to sole traders for 1 to 3 years went down by 92.17% (from 1.66 million RUR to 130,000 RUR) in January-October 2007.

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service keeps preparing for UralTransBank and Severnaya Kazna’s trials: the two banks are charged with violating the antimonopoly law. The Service is now busy collecting all the papers needed for the case; the first court hearing has been scheduled for November 12, 2007. The Service first took legal action against two Yekaterinburg-based banks in October 2007. UralTransBank and Severnaya Kazna were suspected of limiting competition through signing certain agreements with a number of local insurers and were therefore accused of violating