SKB-Bank has offered over 5 billion RUR worth of loans to small and medium enterprises so far. The number of loans came to more than 10,000. RBC.Rating reports SKB-Bank is one of Russia’s top ten banks in terms of loans given to small and medium-scale businesses. SKB-Bank keeps working on the development of its lending practices, as growth of small and medium-scale business is an important catalyst of Russian economy and these companies actively cooperate with the banks. Experts believe only 20% to 25% of Russian small businesses’ demand for loans has been satisfied so far. ‘Our Spin Up

Sberbank’s Ural branch signed a government contract with Sverdlovsk Region’s Youth Affairs Department regarding the bank’s participation in the federal housing program in 2007, the bank’s press officer reports. According to the contract, the state offers young families a subsidy they can use to buy themselves a place and transfers the money into an account that has to be opened in Sberbank of Russia. The particular sum depends on the number of family members and comes to 35% to 40% of the dwelling’s cost. After a family has found a suitable apartment and provides the bank with the purchase

A report was made by Academic construction project’s manager Stanislav Pridvizhkin in the course of a monthly meeting on the socially important construction in Sverdlovsk Region. The meeting was chaired by Governor Eduard Rossel. ‘We manage to stick with the construction schedule. Eight cranes are currently employed at the site, and all the engineering infrastructure is to be commissioned in the third quarter of this year. The water conduit will be commissioned in the very near future,’ Stanislav Pridvizhkin said. The Governor and the region’s Minister of Construction and Housing Maintenance

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in UralFinPromBank valid for 181 days to 1 year plummeted by 100% (from 19.5 million RUR to zero) in January-May 2008.

The public prosecution authorities’ investigation that followed the accident at Demidov Business Center’s construction site (based in Boris Yeltsin St. in Yekaterinburg) in February 2008 resulted in a criminal lawsuit. The charge is based on Article 2 (part 143) of Russian Criminal Code and involves violations of labor safety regulations that resulted in involuntary manslaughter. On February 29, 2008, two employees of Iset Construction Company were working on the wall forms of the elevator shaft when due to violations of safety rules they fell down on the bottom of the shaft. One of them was

The participants of the project known as the School of Managing Director supported by Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works (part of Evraz Group) have recently come back from a professional training workshop in Germany. Looking into the organization of production processes at German enterprises was the final stage of the company’s young managers’ training. The company’s middle level managers first went through internship under Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works’ leading experts and experts from a number of other Russian enterprises. Their training abroad was focused on prospects and

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of nongovernmental financial organizations’ deposits in UniCreditBank valid for 91 to 180 days dropped by 93.41% (from 355.967 million RUR to 23.445 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

‘Nothing has changed regarding the apartment buildings in Bazoviy Lane over last month. Even though there are no legal reasons why Mayak, the developer, should not be given the commissioning permit, Yekaterinburg’s municipal authorities prevent them from getting it,’ Mayak’s Vice President Alexander Kobernichenko announced in the course of a monthly meeting on the socially important construction in Sverdlovsk Region. The meeting was chaired by Governor Eduard Rossel. ‘The city council has numerously claimed that the buildings don’t get commissioned because of their clashes with us related to

Aston, the local developer, keeps putting up its Aston Plaza, an eighteen-storey apartment building in Radischev-Gurzufskaya St. despite the fact that Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities insist on freezing the construction process. The building in question has already been featured in eleven lawsuits, and the neighboring buildings’ dwellers have laid numerous claims against the developer as well as engaged in large-scale protest picketing. The complaints have to do with the fact that that this high-rise building would block all the sunshine from the nearby apartment block,

‘Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg raises its fuel prices too often, which means the fuel fee grows increasingly expensive as well. As for the last price increase, the fuel fee for Spain-bound flights came to ?320 against the previous ?280,’ Director of Avenue Travel Agency Natalya Penkina said to UrBC. ‘These ongoing fuel fee increases naturally irritate the travelers quite a bit. Travel agents have to keep apologizing and explaining the case. Both our agency and the whole market are having some hard time now, and we are not sure what is going to happen next,’ Natalya Penkina added.

URSA Bank set up its 1001st terminal in one of Respect shoe stores in Novosibirsk. The terminal can process Gold Crown, MasterCard, and Visa cards. The bank already runs terminals in forty-six Russian cities where they can be found in cafes and restaurants, clinics and hospitals, stores and shopping malls, at filling stations and mobile operators’ offices. Some companies offer their card-using customers a 1% to 10% discount. ‘Non-cash payments are globally recognized as the most civilized and secure way of paying for goods and services. The increase in the number of plastic card users largely

Sverdlovsk Region’s Federal Antimonopoly Service keeps looking into the claim laid against Yekaterinburgnefteprodukt and Lukoil-Permnefteprodukt. The two companies are accused of price collusion. ‘Since we still need to obtain a number of documents from Yekaterinburgnefteprodukt, the hearing of the case has been put off until July 15, 2008. We are not going to postpone the case for long,’ Sverdlovsk Region’s Federal Antimonopoly Service’s department director Yulia Anisimova says. The two previous meetings did not result in any decision, as more papers were needed. Yulia Anisimova reports

Ural Railway Machine-Building Plant (part of Sinara Group)’s Board of Directors decided to terminate the authority of the plant’s General Director Alexander Saltaev on July 7, 2008. This early termination was agreed upon by both parties. Following the BOD’s decision, Anatoly Sabelnikov is going to become the plant’s GD on July 8, 2008.

‘We have already issued quite a few cards, especially for our partners’ salary projects. We are currently servicing about 70,000 cards and planning to increase their number to several hundred thousands thanks to our own processing center. Cards will be launched in all the parts of Russia where the bank operates, from Irkutsk Region to Moscow,’ METCOMBANK’s Plastic Card Director Alexander Peshin said to UrBC. METCOMBANK expects to launch its own processing center at the beginning of July 2008. ‘Having our own processing center means offering a customer a card will take less time; besides, we

RBC.Rating came up with the results of their latest Russian financial market research. Their rating featured banks that proved the most profitable and the most efficient in the first quarter of 2008. Just like a year earlier, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development made it to Russia’s top 100 list, leaving behind many other Ural Federal District-based banks. The bank’s profit amounted to 355.8 million RUR on April 1, 2008 and secured the company the 44th best position on the Top 100 list and the 1st place among all the banks of Ural Federal District, the bank’s press officer reports.

The Public Security Council meeting devoted to timber industry problems was coordinated in Yekaterinburg. It was detected in the course of the meeting that despite the measures taken, the region keeps exporting increasingly more wood pulp with very little processing. In 2006, for instance, the regional customs noted that about 80% of all the timber was exported in the form of rough wood and converted timber. Last year, over 88% of wood export consisted of edged boards and logs, that is, products that undergo little processing. In the course of a meeting, a report was made by the Council’s

Vanadium, the ore mining and processing enterprise based in Kachkanar, Sverdlovsk Region, launched its investment project targeted at increasing production and transporting more mined rock. The project provides for acquisition and launch of sixteen pieces of new machinery and considerable upgrade of the plant’s communication system as well as creating more jobs, the spokesperson for the enterprise reports. The better part of the equipment has already arrived at the plant. These are eleven dump cars with the capacity of 105 tons each, TEM-18 diesel locomotive and NP-1 electromotive. To service

A heavy engineering committee was set up within the framework of Russia’s Machine-Builders Union. The committee’s first meeting was attended by representatives of twenty Russian companies and resulted in appointing General Director of Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation Nazim Efendiev the committee’s chairman, the spokesperson for Russia’s Machine-Builders Union. The re-introduction of the committee is aimed at coming up with a united policy of heavy engineering development and at uniting the enterprises’ efforts in order to draw up the governmental heavy engineering development program for

‘We keep on working on our plastic cards and have been recently promoted to Principal by VISA. SKB-Bank has issued 480,000 cards for its customers so far. These can be used for making a lot of different payments, including one’s phone and housing bills. In addition, we can boast a broad ATM network,’ SKB-Bank’s BOD Chairman Mikhail Khodorovskiy said in the course of a press briefing. The Chairman reports SKB-Bank intends to launch its first credit cards in July 2008. The bank runs over 250 automatic teller machines located in nine Russian regions.

Aston, the local developer, announced via its official website that the price of a one-room apartment in Aston Plaza located at 61 Radischev St. in Yekaterinburg had dropped from 4.554 million RUR to 3.9 million RUR. This decrease in price is reported to be a ‘special offer’, but the low demand for Aston Plaza’s apartments might also be the reason for this. Aston’s Chairman Vyacheslav Trapeznikov said in the course of a TV interview in May 2008 that only a third of all apartments had been sold at that moment, while the building itself was to be commissioned in the last quarter of 2008.