RusRating confirmed forty-four Russian banks’ credit ratings using the data available as of May 4, 2008. Yekaterinburg-based SKB-Bank’s credit rating was confirmed at BB-, which is better than the rating of many large Moscow-based banks. SKB-Bank’s rating was originally confirmed by the agency at B+ in August 2006 and was promoted 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.

‘The region’s labor productivity is expected to quadruple by 2020,’ Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov announced at a recent government meeting devoted to the region’s developmental strategy. Viktor Koksharov believes the implementation of Sverdlovsk Region’s socioeconomic development projects will result in the average annual wage growth of 108.5%, the average annual industrial output growth of at least 107%, and the average annual GDP growth of at least 108% by 2020. ‘These are quite serious and challenging goals; to achieve all this, the investment in the region’s

Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation (Yekaterinburg, Russia), Electrotyazhmash (Kharkov, Ukraine), and ELTA (Kharkov, Ukraine) signed a tripartite strategic cooperation agreement. The three enterprises are going to cooperate in the field of development, production, and market promotion of excavating and drilling machinery, the spokesperson for Uralmash said to UrBC. The spokesperson for Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation reports the three parties are planning to sign contracts that would allow each of the companies to build up their technological and engineering potentials, raise

The price of one liter of gasoline is now nearly the same in Russia and the U.S. and comes to about one dollar. According to the state statisticians, the average gas and diesel fuel prices experienced a certain growth over the several weeks of April. The automobile gasoline now costs 20.32 RUR per liter (AI 76 is sold for 18.02 RUR per liter, AI 92 is sold for 21.36 RUR per liter, AI 95 is sold for 22.84 RUR per liter), while diesel fuel costs 20.89 RUR per liter. Fuel prices went up in fifty Russian constituencies. Nazran experienced the most dramatic price increase: gasoline grew 21.4% more

Nineteen workers of Lobvinskiy biochemical plant have been hunger-striking for seven days now. Twenty people began the hunger strike on April 28, 2008 demanding that they should be paid their wages for the years 2007 and 2008 and get compensated for the delay in accordance with Article 236 of the Labor Code. At the moment, the enterprise owes its employees some 19 million RUR worth of wages.