Almaty, 17 April 2008 UC RUSAL, the worlds largest aluminium and alumina producer, announces that, within the framework of its joint venture in Kazakhstan, it has signed an agreement to sell a 50% share in coal mining at the Ekibastuzskoye coal field to Samruk Holding managing state assets. The mining at the Ekibastuzskoye coal field is in the areas of the Bogatyr and Severny coal mines in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan. Under the signed agreement, Samruk Holding will pay UC RUSAL USD 345 million accounting for a 50% share in coal mining at the Bogatyr and Severny coal mines. The cost of

‘The decree that prevents people with debts officially declared in courts from leaving the country came into effect on February 1, 2008. Debtors may not be allowed to go abroad for up to six months,’ head of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Service of Court Officers Sergey Vinogradov said to UrBC. Vinogradov explained that this regulation only concerns executive orders issued by the court; the sum of the debt is irrelevant. ‘Some seventy people couldn’t go abroad last week alone,’ he added.

Sberbank of Russia, Visa International, and Aeroflot came up with a special offer known as Your Way to Beijing with Sberbank’s Visa Aeroflot; the offer is valid through May 31, 2008 and is dedicated to this year’s most memorable sports event: the Olympics to be held in China this summer. All of Sberbank’s cardholders who own Visa Classic Aeroflot and Visa Gold Aeroflot can take part in the prize-winning lottery provided they use these cards at least once to pay for their shopping. Prizes include two trips for two to the Olympics in Beijing. In addition, for every 30 RUR, $1, or ?1 you spend

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank URALSIB to state-run for-profit organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 100% (from 19.923 million RUR to zero) in January-March 2008.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was declared the bank with the Ural Federal District’s best investment policy in the course of a contest held among the best stock market players. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was able to increase the volume of its trading operations on the securities market by 3.1 times, or up to 521.319 billion RUR, in 2007 compared to 2006. The bank kept appearing in both MICEX and RTS (FORTS) ratings throughout the year. ‘The bank has everything in terms of resources and technologies to give its customers the fullest possible range of

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Universal Bank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 97.33% (from 9.75 million RUR to 260,000 RUR) in January-March 2008.

‘Passenger service fees were raised by 11% in Koltsovo airport’s international terminal after the Federal Tariff Service approved of this,’ says Koltsovo airport’s PR Director Yulia Fedotova. ‘This recent increase was something that the Service went through with in most of Russia’s large airports of national importance. The letter Koltsovo airport received from the Federal Tariff Service stated, for instance, that the fees had to go up proportionally to the country’s socioeconomic development to ensure financial stability of natural monopolies like seaports, airports, and accompanying

ROEL Group has announced recently that they might actually buy Noviy Grad’s assets. Lev Tretyakov, CEO ROEL Asset Management (part of ROEL Group), says they have been considering the idea for a while now. ‘It’s early times yet to speak of the details of the prospective transaction; we are currently at the negotiations stage, and the decision will probably be taken soon,’ he adds. Right to a Dwelling, one of the local NGOs, reported earlier that ROEL Group that deals in resuscitation of dying businesses among other things might actually buy the assets of Yekaterinburg’s bankrupt developer.

Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg disputed the decision taken by Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service: the latter claims the airport is guilty of violating the competition protection laws. The Service declared on December 4, 2007 that Koltsovo airport, RusAviaJet, and Aviaprad could be charged with a secret collusion: the three companies made an agreement related to storage of petroleum products; as a result, jet fuel prices were strikingly different for Aviaprad and other carriers, despite the fact that it was one the same jet fuel all along. Aviaprad was thus

SKB-Bank was able to improve on both the volume and the number of mortgage loans it offered to customers in January-March 2008. The bank’s loan portfolio increased by 363.4 million RUR on April 1, 2008, or by 25% compared to a year earlier. As for the loans offered to people who’d like to buy an apartment currently under construction, the volume of these doubled compared with the volume of such loans issued in the first quarter of 2007. All in all, SKB-Bank offered its customers over 4,600 mortgage loans worth 4.5 billion RUR in January-March 2008.

Ural car factory AMUR owes Uralsevergaz 3,331,291 RUR for the natural gas the former has used by April 1, 2008, the spokesperson for Uralsevergaz reports.