The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Sverdlovsk Region signed a memorandum of understanding in the course of the 14th Russian Economic Forum in Yekaterinburg. The document was signed by Governor Eduard Rossel and Director Klaus Rohland, the IBRD’s permanent representative in Russia. The memorandum gives the region an opportunity to employ the World Bank’s experience in the field of economic research to improve and develop the area as well as to perfect its fund-raising mechanisms, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. Governor Eduard Rossel says the IBRD is going

Ural Railway Machine-Building Plant’s Board of Directors decided to appoint the CEO and First Deputy GD of Pnevmostroymachina Dmitriy Yakshin the company’s General Director on May 15, 2009. Incidentally, the enterprise’s former GD Anatoly Sabelnikov only came into office in July 2008, succeeding Alexander Saltaev, who was appointed in May 2007. This means that the plant’s BOD has elected the new General Director for the third time over the last two years.

SOT and Magnitogorsk-based MZMZ (members of Rimera O&G maintenance company) have been successfully re-certified by QS Azia Sertik (based in Almaty, Kazakhstan) and thus proved the compliance of their quality management system and of their produce with the ST RK ISO 9001-2001 standards. The ST RK ISO 9001-2001 standard is the state standard of the Republic of Kazakhstan and an adjusted version of the international ISO 9001:2000 one. Getting the compliance certificate is obligatory for all the enterprises willing to supply their produce to the Republic of Kazakhstan. ‘These companies

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is going to keep looking into the claim laid by the bank’s minority shareholder (2.07% of shares) Oksana Shishkina against Bank Severnaya Kazna and Alfa-Bank in June 2009. The plaintiff insists on Alfa-Bank making Bank Severnaya Kazna go through with a public buy-out offer and acquire the shares from the other stockholders. The decision to put off the hearing till June was taken at a session on May 14, 2009. Shishkina believes Alfa-Bank must buy her shareholding (1,276,500 shares) at the highest price offered to the other stockholders. She insists on Bank

The General Director of Express-Garant Alexander Ivanov and Leonid Chetverkin, the GD of Gubernskaya Management Company joined Reserve South Ural Social Development Bank’s Board of Directors. The news has been announced after the annual general meeting held in Yekaterinburg recently. Apart from these two executives, the BOD also consists of the bank’s Counselors to the Chairman Valeria Kanevskaya and Alexander Ustyukhin as well as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board Sergey Kolobov. Alexander Ivanov and Leonid Chetverkin were reported earlier to have bought Reserve South Ural Social

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK)’s coating shop started manufacturing the new hot-dip-galvanised, high-durability flat stock 350 in accordance with GOST 52246-2004; the product’s thickness comes to .7 to 2 mm and its width reaches 1,000 to 1,250 mm. According to MMK’s PR Department, this highly durable product is becoming more and more popular with the builders (who use it to make reliable structural shapes, for example). The main advantage of using this stock lies in the possibility to make the metal less thick while retaining the same durability characteristics. What is more,