The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Industry delegation is going to visit Yekaterinburg in September 2008, the newly appointed U.S. Consul General in Yekaterinburg Timothy Sandusky said in the course of his meeting with Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. ‘We are interested in cooperating with the American companies and banks in all possible ways; the mid-Urals offer some virtually unlimited opportunities for business people. Besides, many thousand machines have to be replaced at our machine-building enterprises; we buy a lot of modern equipment in the United States, and our needs keep

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of call loans given by VUZ-Bank to private individuals went down by 46.36% (from 8.72 million RUR to 4.677 million RUR) in January-July 2008.

‘One unique thing about RenovaStroyGroup’s Academic construction project is a lot of attention the developer pays to environmental issues. Their multi-faceted area development approach provides for the construction of objects needed not only for work and rest but also for the harmonious relations between humans and nature. This means the developer is trying to create a totally new environment for the local people’s full-fledged life,’ says Chairman of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the All-Russian Environmental Protection Society and Director of Oleniye Ruchi natural park Nikolai Kalinkin.

Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg handled fewer flights bound for the south and east of Russia in July 2008. For instance, the number of passengers who traveled to Sochi, Anapa, and Krasnodar through Koltsovo airport went down, while the number of passenger flights to Turkey only increased by 24% in July 2008 compared to 33% a month earlier, the spokesperson for the airport reports. The airport believes this can be explained by soaring jet fuel prices. Koltsovo airport’s General Director Kirill Shubin says the market can be faced with stagnation as soon as 2009, should the price growth

Ural Airlines keeps reducing the fuel fee – an essential part of an airplane ticket’s price. The fuel fee for tickets travelers use to fly to Egypt has gone down by 12% since the beginning of August 2008, while the fuel has grown 13% less expensive in Egyptian airports over the same period of time. The airline’s press officer reports most Russian airports are only planning to decrease their fuel prices in mid-August. ‘In case the fuel becomes, say, 2% cheaper, we’ll have to decrease our basic prices by 1%, and this will be the right thing economically. At the same time, we are hoping to get

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in SberInvestBank valid for 31 to 90 days dropped by 84% (from 5 million RUR to 500,000 RUR) in January-July 2008.

The officers of Yekaterinburg Railway Customs Post and Yekaterinburg Customs Intellectual Property Rights Department detected a set of radio recorders worth 760,000 RUR altogether that a smuggler illegally imported to the Russian Federation in August 2008, the spokesperson for the Ural Customs Administration reports. An investigation followed, whereupon it was revealed that 2,000 radio recorders bearing Panasonic trademarks were delivered to Russia from the United Arab Emirates by a Yekaterinburg-based firm. The whole shipment was supposed to have been transported to Kazakhstan by railway

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Bank24.ru to private individuals for 181 days to 1 year dropped by 57.33% (from 27.573 million RUR to 11.764 million RUR) in January-July 2008.

‘The introduction of greater financial guarantees might squeeze a number of tour operators out of the market,’ ORANGE tur’s Tourism Director Svetlana Stolyarova said to UrBC. In the meantime, a number of insurance companies feel the current scale of tour operators’ financial security guaranteed by the existing legislation is not enough to make up for the consequences of their possible bankruptcies. These insurers say the back-up sum has to be more impressive. ‘I feel we need to work with the existing legislation for three years at least before introducing any changes. Detour was faced with

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralprivatbank to sole traders for 1 to 3 years went down by 20.32% (from 78.215 million RUR to 62.316 million RUR) in January-July 2008.