UC RUSAL’s Bogoslovskiy smelter is now working on some large treads and protectors meant for anticorrosion protection of an international gas pipeline located on the bottom of the Kara Sea. The treads are being made by order of Moscow pipe facility. ‘The plant has been asked to make 120 tons of PBTA 1200 protectors that will protect the 1,219-millmeter steel pipes with wall thickness of 27 millimeters. These pipes are designed to withstand the pressure of 120 atmospheres. The use of such pipes in the Kara Sea’s special climate conditions is unique both to Russia and the entire world,’ UC

‘The current construction of Yekaterinburg’s future Academic district is definitely going to have an impact on the city’s housing market as a whole, since a lot of new, good quality dwellings will be put up,’ says Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s CEO Rustem Galeev. ‘As far as I know, about 150,000 square meters worth of housing will be completed in Academic next year, while the amount of the entire city’s new housing expected in 2009 comes to about 1 million square meters altogether. This means Academic will provide 10% to 15% of the city’s new apartments,’ he notes.

‘There are hardly any independent currency exchange offices left in many cities now, Yekaterinburg included, so all the swindles normally occur in the capitals,’ SKB-Bank’s Operating Department’s Director Larisa Larionova said to UrBC. In the meantime, instances of fraud related to exchanging currency are officially reported to become alarmingly frequent. Most often, customers don’t get the whole sum on their hands or they are given raised bills. The victims say a bank whose name the office may bear is most often the one no longer operating. ‘The best advice that can be given to Russians now

Deputy Head of Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) Nikolai Krupinin chaired a meeting on Kamensk Uralskiy metallurgical plant’s compliance with the environmental legislation. In fact, the plant was reported to be operating without a water-dumping permit or waste-production regulations since December 2007. What is more, the enterprise kept working without an air emission license since May 2007 despite the fact that its emission level tripled over the time. Then, the metallurgical plant’s conservation program

‘The dropping stock market prices are luring more investors in at the moment. MICEX’s broker’s account growth rate tripled as recently as last week. This is hardly surprising, since a prolonged stock index downfall usually makes the largest Russian companies’ shares look more and more appealing and the investors are becoming increasingly aware of these shares being obviously underestimated. Given all this, the investors have to have a better expertise in both practical and theoretical terms to make the most of the market situation. This is why the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development

A risk management program related to healthcare and industrial safety was launched at ChTPZ Group’s Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant in September 2008. This was done in preparation for the next year’s OHSAS 18001 international certification procedure. ‘This document is meant to regulate the identification and assessment of potential risks as well as their management. The new rules apply to both the Group’s employees and extraneous workers who have access to our workplaces. In addition to the risk assessment program, our preparations for the OHSAS 18001

Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities carried out inspections of the River Iset, the River Chusovaya, the River Berezovka, the River Pyshma, and the River Ufa and detected that some nearby enterprises were lacking water-dumping permits, while their waste disposal plants were note powerful enough or simply malfunctioning, which often resulted in accidental discharge of waste. Bobrovskiy insulation plant located near the River Iset, Pervouralsk silica plant located near the River Chusovaya, Vodokanal (which uses the River Berezovka and the River Pyshma), Farta located near the

‘The local banks are starting to offer fewer car loans to their customers. For one, Bank Severnaya Kazna is not handling any new loan contracts for the time being. The bank claims this has to do with the overwhelming amount of contracts they have signed already,’ Lending and Insurance Director of Subaru car center (Rimex Motors) Yulia Teltsova said to an UrBC reporter. ‘Besides, some banks have been raising the interest rates on car loans lately. These are Baltiyskiy and Severnaya Kazna, to name just a few,’ she added.

A thirty-people delegation of German officials and business community representatives, headed by the State Baden-Württemberg’s Ministry of Economics Affairs State Secretary Richard Drautz, will visit Samara and Yekaterinburg soon. The agenda of their visits provides for professional workshops where twelve Baden-Württemberg-based enterprises will present their products and services to Russian experts. These enterprises and companies are mainly involved in the machine-building and tool-manufacturing industries as well as in electronics and touch-sensitive and conservation technologies. During

‘Demidov Business Center is not on the to-do list we have in terms of getting ready for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit next summer. No summit-related events are going to take place there,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel said in the course of a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. Demidov Business Center actually used to be one of the objects that had to be ready by the summit in 2009, while t congress hall was expected to host one of the summit activities. Until recently, the project was implemented by Klaas-Story run by Mars Sharafulin; however, the

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Tagilbank to private individuals despite overdraft went down by 28.38% (from 2.628 million RUR to 1.882 million RUR) in January-August 2008.

URSA Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) are about to launch a new lending program aimed at supporting the energy-efficient projects. The bank has already been offered a $50m credit line by the IFC. ‘This program is expected to boost the Urals and Siberia’s energy-efficiency markets. The IFC experts intend to help URSA Bank learn about the energy-saving projects and to support the bank’s customers at every implementation stage,’ the bank’s press officer reports. URSA Bank is to finance the projects targeted at an impressive improvement in the energy-saving field. This could

‘The lack of a clear-cut classification of business centers is still a problem. When putting up a building like this, the developers usually use the criteria elaborated by the ‘Big Four’: Colliers International, Cushman & Wakefield / Stiles & Riabokobylko, Jones Lang Lasalle, and CB Richard Ellis / Noble Gibbons. These are the criteria that allow the developers, the investors, the consultants, and the brokers to classify a business center as belonging to class A, B+, or B- and they are naturally based on the tenants’ needs,’ says RED Management Company’s Deputy GD Andrei Braude.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of private individuals’ deposits in Pervouralsk Joint Stock Commercial Bank valid for 31 to 90 days dropped by 51.63% (from 6.277 million RUR to 3.036 million RUR) in January-August 2008.

Expert Group came up with a rating of Russia’s 200 largest banks in terms of assets, with Mechel Bank getting the 183d position. The bank was only rated 239th largest bank a year earlier, which means its assets rose by 90.3% between July 1, 2007 and July 1, 2008.

Bank24.ru is going to launch its 24/7 office in Saint Petersburg on October 3, 2008. According to Kommersant Saint Petersburg’s survey, however, the area’s financial gurus feel skeptical about the office’s future. ‘This isn’t the city’s first round-the-clock office. Baltinvestbank set up an outlet like this in the summer of 2006 where exchange of currency and money orders were available at night. This office switched to the usual working hours till 8 PM in January 2007, though. The bank’s CEO Igor Kirillovikh said the currency exchange enjoyed the real 24/7 demand during the travelers’ high

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to private individuals for 181 days to 1 year plummeted by 88.59% (from 9.206 million RUR to 1.05 million RUR) in January-August 2008.

‘A lot of water will have passed under the bridge by February 2009 when UralTransBank will allegedly get the loan. In fact, only very few regional banks manage to attract some European money successfully, so the bank Chairman’s claim might only serve to calm the customers who have been disturbed by the market situation,’ says FPG Neva’s Yekaterinburg branch’s director Alexei Pozdeev. UralTransBank’s Chairman Valeriy Zavodov said in the course of several interviews that the bank intended to get a syndicated loan on the international capital market in February or March 2009. Zavodov explained

Kyshtym copper plant (part of Russian Copper Company) has recently voted for a new version of the enterprise’s collective agreement, thus closing up the ad hoc committee’s work related to the collective agreements adopted for Russian Copper Company’s divisions in 2008-2011. The new agreements are already being used in Novgorod metallurgical plant, Novgorod Region, Uralgidromed, Sverdlovsk Region, Ormet, Orenburg Region, Karabashmed, Chelyabinsk Region, Alexandrinskaya ore mining company, Chelyabinsk Region, and Kyshtym copper plant, Chelyabinsk Region. ‘The discussion on the changes that

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by VUZ Bank to private individuals for 91 to 180 days went down by 71.42% (from 2.086 million RUR to 596,000 RUR) in January-August 2008.