‘Sverdlovsk Region received 1.650 million square meters of housing last year, while this year’s program provides for 2 million square meters of housing, 112 kilometers of highways, eight hospitals, a dozen schools, three kindergartens, and 20 kilometers of power transmission lines,’ head of the regional division of the state construction monitoring authorities Ivan Rabtsevitch announced at a press conference on March 18, 2008. ‘The region has over 2,000 construction sites at the moment, most of which have serious quality problems. About 20% of all the buildings do not meet the obligatory

VUZ Bank had 101.079 million RUR worth of overdue debt on the consumer loans offered to the bank’s customers on March 1, 2008, which is 24.31%, or 24,570,000 RUR greater than on January 1, 2008. The share of overdue debt in the bank’s loan portfolio thus came to 3.4%. This information is available from a report on the growth dynamics of consumer loan portfolios of the largest banks located in Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen Regions as well as in Perm Territory in January-February 2008. The report can be found on Bank Severnaya Kazna’s official website.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development came up with a new offer for businesses and organizations on March 17, 2008. The new, increased interest rates on deposits mean the bank’s customers can now make the best of their capital and get the greatest return on investments. The interest rates were raised for the current Liquid and Fixed-Term deposit schemes as well as for the U.S. dollar deposits. In addition, the bank launched new attractive deposit schemes known as Great Profit and 13 for 13.

The value of net assets of BCS Oil Fund (BrokerCreditService Management Company) went down by 5.12%, dropping from 40,332,757 RUR on March 14, 2008 to 38,265,97.41 RUR on March 17, 2008. This information was published in compliance with the demand that any issuer and/or a joint stock company must promptly reveal any data related to their activity that might influence the company’s stock price.

‘Today’s technologies make it possible to collect data and manage a number of processes virtually anywhere on the globe, including Yekaterinburg. This is one of Russia’s largest cities, a major junction point as well as a logistics terminal with unique geographical position. A great many important Russian businesses’ head offices are based in Yekaterinburg,’ Oleg Borisov, the General Director of Europe-Asia, the information and consulting center, said to UrBC explaining why the company’s headquarters were located in Yekaterinburg. ‘Like in any other business, the thing that matters most is

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Tyumenenergobank to natural persons for 31 to 90 days dropped by 100% (from 5 million RUR to zero) in January-February 2008.

Chairman of SKB-Bank Mikhail Khodorovskiy took part in the Russian economic and financial forum in Zurich, Switzerland on March 16-17, 2008. The agenda of the forum was reported to cover issues like the state of Russian economy, the country’s socio-economic developmental potential in 2008-2010, the results of the presidential and Duma election campaigns, the major development directions and challenges of Russia’s financial system (the banking and the insurance sectors), and trying aspects (including legal ones) of international economic and financial cooperation. The forum was attended by the

Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank had 32.935 million RUR worth of overdue debt on the consumer loans offered to the bank’s customers on March 1, 2008, which is 8.5%, or 2,800,000 RUR greater than on January 1, 2008. The share of overdue debt in the bank’s loan portfolio thus came to 2.9%. This information is available from a report on the growth dynamics of consumer loan portfolios of the largest banks located in Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen Regions as well as in Perm Territory in January-February 2008. The report can be found on Bank Severnaya Kazna’s official website.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to sole traders for 31 to 90 days went down by 91.01% (from 18.18 million RUR to 1.635 million RUR) in January-February 2008.

‘Any asset has a price, and the shareholding of the problematic Nizhniy Tagil-based plant is no exception,’ Bank24.ru’s Deputy Chairman and CEO Boris Dyakonov said to UrBC. In the meantime, it has been unofficially reported that the bank intends to sell the plant’s shareholding it currently owns. ‘We are considering a few proposals at the moment, and some of these look suitable in terms of both the sum offered and the contractor’s reputation. Bank24.ru’s BOD members can use a number of strategies, including selling this asset, but we haven’t come up with any final decision yet,’ he added.