RBC.Rating has recently come up with the Russian banks’ ranking based on the volume and number of loans offered to small and medium-scale businesses in the first half of 2008. Only two Ural banks were actually featured among the top forty companies on the list, SKB-Bank’s press officer says. The agency’s analysts report the SME lending volumes kept increasing in the six months of 2008; it went up by 22% and amounted to 1.322 trillion RUR. The number of loans given to small enterprises nearly doubled. SKB-Bank topped Ural Federal District-based banks’ rating in terms of the number of loans

URSA Bank has already sold 10, 110 business packages to legal entities and sole traders within a year of launching the offer. The offer that comes in a cardboard box is a set of options that provides for the cash transactions and settlement operations and an easier loan-getting procedure for businesses. The program was launched at the end of September 2007 in Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg. Now the offer is available in ninety-two Russian cities. ‘The sales rise by 15% a month on average. We’ve already provided our customers with 2.5 billion worth of loan limits under the business package

The top executives of Renova-StroyGroup took part in Sochi 2008, the 7th international economic forum, the spokesperson for the company reports. The developer presented three projects it’s working on in Krasnodar and was involved in the forum’s business agenda. Renova-StroyGroup’s President Veniamin Golubitskiy made a report at the French-Russian round table discussion and participated in the Russian-U.S. round table discussion within the framework of the two countries’ Business Dialogue on September 20, 2008.

The Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov spoke to the Federal Minister for European and International Affairs of the Republic of Austria Ursula Plassnik about the feasibility of setting up Austria’s Consulate General in the mid-Urals during his recent visit to Austria. Koksharov explained that the introduction of a foreign country’s official representation normally boosted the trade end economic relations’ development and greatly supported the two countries’ cooperation of all kinds. He said there were currently fifteen countries’ representations in Sverdlovsk Region. These

RBC.Rating came up with a report on the Russian banks’ performance in the first half of 2008. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was given the 17th position in the ranking of Most Customer-Oriented Banks, according to the volume of collateral-free loans it offered the customers in the six months of 2008. This came to 6.24 billion RUR (92.93% better than a year earlier) and was actually the top result in Ural Federal District. ‘The Bank of Russia reports banks are starting to slow down on consumer loans. Their total private individual lending portfolio rose by 20.8% in the first

The newest gas-cleaning system is going to be installed at Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant. This will be a part of the enterprise’s steel-smelting complex meant for manufacturing cast-steel ingots for seamless pipes with the capacity of 950,000 tons a year. The capacity of the gas-cleaning unit comes to 2.1 million cubic meters an hour, which means 99.6% of process gas (the by-product of steel-smelting procedure) can be trapped and cleaned in accordance with the Russian environmental legislation and the European air polluting norms. Thanks to the new equipment, the final dust content in the air

‘The state of the Russian stock market is certainly alarming; one must admit, however, that there are no fundamental reasons for the panic we’ve been witnessing over the last few days. Whatever is happening now is the emotional reaction to the international events. As a matter of fact, both the country’s economy on the whole and the banking sector in particular are stable enough, which can be proved, among other things, by the rating agencies’ reports,’ METCOMBANK’s CFO Vadim Bambozov said to an UrBC reporter. ‘The market has been in a bit of trouble for over a year now. It is only

The Federal Antimonopoly Service found Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg guilty of violating the federal legislation on the protection of competition (Article 10, part 1). As the airport agreed to eliminate the violation of its own accord, no report will be filed on the company, but it will still have to face administrative responsibility (based on Article 14.31 of the Administrative Offense Code). The inquiry into the case began after Siberia Airlines complained about Koltsovo Airport’s avoiding an agreement related to rendering ground handling service to their aircraft. Koltsovo Airport is

Bank Severnaya Kazna is now only cashing customers’ deposits if they had made an appointment in advance. UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics found out that one can get the money from one’s deposit twenty four hours after making the appointment (that has to be made before 3 PM the day before).

Kamensk-Uralskiy division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) carried out an inspection of Ford Center Kamensk/Autoland Holding’s electrical facilities upon the condo management’s request. The inspection resulted in an administrative offense report based on Article 9.11 of the Administrative Offense Code. The report has been placed with the court so that the temporary cable line supplying electricity to the center could be officially halted, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor reports. On September 9, 2008,