Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is about to reach its maximum production output ever this year, the company’s Chairman Viktor Rashnikov announced at a trade union meeting. MMK is now the world’s twentieth largest steelmaking enterprise and Russia’s No. 1. MMK produced 11.046 million tons of steel in January-October 2007, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 771,700 tons. The company expects to make 12.2 million tons of steel by the end of 2007. Mr. Rashnikov also commented on the company’s successful IPO at London Stock Exchange and the launch of a number of large-scale

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of call loans given by VUZ-Bank to natural persons went down by 34.13% (from 14.683m RUR to 9.671m RUR) in January-October 2007.

Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works’ radiation safety service is going to celebrate its 25th anniversary this year. Over the last 25 years, the service believes it has managed to detect and remove 517 radiation sources. Their actions resulted in cancellation of the already scheduled assembling of 212 heightened danger devices and disposal of 305 batches of radioactive materials, the spokesperson for Evraz Group said to UrBC. The plant’s radiation safety service has received governmental accreditation by now; its laboratory consists of 26 unique pieces of equipment that make it possible to

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 12.27% (from 1,066,036,000 RUR to 935,240,000 RUR) in January-October 2007.

Within the ten months of 2007, the return of duties to Sverdlovsk Region’s consolidated budget exceeded the corresponding figures for the previous year by 28%, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. In January-October 2007, the return of duties came to 84,75,700 RUR, whereas in 2006, the figure only amounted to 65,889,000 RUR. The spokesperson indicated a considerable rate of tax proceeds growth for a number of taxes, including the company income tax (an increase of 28.7% against the same figures for the previous year), the graduated personal tax (an increase of 32.8%), the lump-sum tax

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by TyumenEnergoBank to non-profit non-governmental organizations for 91 to 180 days went down by 100% (from .5m RUR to 0 RUR) in January-October 2007.

On November 23, 2007 the Bank of Russia registered the US dollar exchange rate at the level of 23.42 RUR per one US dollar. This is the lowest US dollar rate recorded since August 1999. On the contrary, the rate of the European currency tends to exceed its own peak values, and its rate on November 23, 2007 amounted to 36.09 RUR per Euro. The crumbling of the US dollar rate causes no boom over the exchange offices. However, the Bank of Russia’s reports show that in 2007, the monthly amounts of US dollars sold by natural persons were always higher than the volumes of US dollars bought by them.

Yekaterinburg Customs processed 52,000 cargo manifests related to export and import of goods in January-October 2007, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 10.6%. 1,700 legal entities were involved in foreign trade turnover, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. The volume of customs duties that are to be directed to the federal budget outstripped the initially planned amount by 3.44%. The budget was given 8.456 billion RUR, which is 1.764 billion RUR better than in January-October 2006. The foreign trade turnover in Yekaterinburg Customs zone reached $6.2bn in

'In January 2008, nearly all the strong drinks sold in Russia are bound to grow more than 5% pricier due to freight expenses going up,’ Galion’s Sales Director Alexander Luchnikov said to UrBC. Mr. Luchnikov says both automobile and railway transportation fares are always on the rise, so the players on the strong drinks market just have to up their prices

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the State Employment Service reports the number of gainfully occupied people in the region came to 2,422,000 on October 1, 2007, with 3.2% of wage and salary earners employed within the agricultural, forestry, and hunting sector, 2.8% employed within the mining industry, 14.9% employed within the manufacturing activity sector, 10.5% employed within metallurgical industry sector, 3.3% are busy making machinery and equipment (excluding weaponry and ammunition), 3.8% are employed in the electricity, natural gas, and water production and distribution sector, 6.3%

Ural Federal District’s division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs completed the investigation of a criminal case that involved a group of raiders guilty of stealing assets of Bogdanovich Porcelain Works. It was revealed in the course of the inquiry that the company’s CFO (who was part of a criminal group) stole some 24 million RUR belonging to the plant and transferred the money into a fictitious firm’s bank account, allegedly as a way of paying for the newest equipment which, in fact, was nothing but scrap metal. This resulted in an overwhelming decrease in the volume of the company’s