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