Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) performed a series of unscheduled inspections of local enterprises. As a result, plenty of environmental offenses were detected. For one, Baronskoye Mining failed to eliminate one of the three subsoil use regulation violations and therefore had a 3,000-ruble mine imposed on it, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s division of Rosprirodnadzor says. UAZ-SUAL turned out to have violated two regulations and was ordered to improve on the situation. The inspection of Uraltransmash (carried out upon the

Rus-Rating raised URSA Bank’s credit rating from BB+, Indefinite Rating Outlook, to BBB-, Stable Rating Outlook. The agency reports the Russian banks switched to the more conservative lending policies as early as the middle of 2008, as the western markets kept struggling with the economic downfall and it was quite obvious that the global problems were bound to affect the domestic market. ‘Most Russian banks (including URSA Bank) are trying to make their resource base less dependent upon the foreign loans and introducing greater interest rates on the home loan markets as well as growing

The management of Bank Severnaya Kazna’s Magnitogorsk branch (the asset of Alfa-Bank at the moment) has recently made 78 people redundant, Chelyabinsk Region Labor and Employment division reported to UrBC. In the meantime, the local office was closed for repairs on February 17, 2009.

Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank is not planning on acquiring Yekaterinburg Municipal Bank, the company’s Deputy PR Director Vitaliy Saprykin was reported as saying. However, Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank has earlier been rumored to consider buying an impressive shareholding in Yekaterinburg Municipal Bank. The two banks agreed in October 2008 that they would cooperate in the field of lending to entities and individuals through 2012. Their collaborative agenda included joint loans to private and business customers based in Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region as well as other parts of Russia; besides, they

Severstal denies the claims made by Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation’s GD Nazim Efendiev regarding the money the former allegedly owes to Uralmash Engineering. Efendiev actually stated at a trade union meeting that Severstal had failed to pay the company for the goods already delivered to them. ‘We cannot see why Severstal should be put on the list of companies unable to pay for the produce shipped to them. This is how things stand: the company bought a 500-ton crane from Uralmash Engineering and hasn’t paid 10 million RUR to it by now. This sum is nothing but a delayed payment (provided