Most of Evraz Group’s members went through their greatest output downfalls (down to 50% in some cases) in the last quarter of 2008, with figures gradually rising in the first quarter of 2009, the holding’s Vice President Dmitriy Sotnikov said at a meeting with Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. The holding now employs 2,000 fewer people compared with last fall, with 500 more employees soon to be made redundant at Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise (VGOK). The Governor said, however, that such redundancies were unacceptable. VGOK is just breaking even at the moment,

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel met up with the General Director of Uralvagonzavod Oleg Sienko, head of the Governor’s Administration Alexander Levin, and Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov. The Governor criticized bitterly the industrial giant’s new management team’s policies in the course of his last press conference. Rossel said Oleg Sienko’s mode of administrative behavior was very similar to that of Uralmashzavod’s former owner Kakha Bendukidze (who had nearly brought the enterprise to its knees). During the meeting, Oleg Sienko explained they’d only

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court started looking into one of the many claims laid by Bank Severnaya Kazna against Mayak Corporation and Uralinvesttsentr Ltd regarding the 71,221,989.04-ruble debt. The plaintiff also insists on having the defendant’s mortgaged property arrested. The preliminary hearing of the case was scheduled for June 11, 2009. As a matter of fact, Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to handle several lawsuits instituted by the bank against Mayak Corporation, with claims totaling to about 1 billion RUR.

A.K. Serov Metallurgical Plant (member of UMMC Holding) was able to prove the compliance of its environmental management system with the ISO 14001:2004 requirements to the auditors, UMMC press service reports. The audit procedure was carried out by TUV Rheinland, the global leader on the independent examination and evaluation services market. Over the four days of the audit, the company’s experts inspected about twenty of the plant’s shops and departments. According to TUV Rheinland’s leading auditor Irina Gabova, the plant’s management system is being perfectly maintained and continually

Alfa-Bank’s Yekaterinburg offices introduced an obligatory service for customers using their individual safety vaults; the commission charged for the service comes to 6,000 RUR a year for vaults with dimensions of 300mm x 550mm x 450 mm (height, length, and width, respectively), the bank’s Customer Support Center informed an UrBC reporter. This means Alfa-Bank actually makes any customer willing to rent a safety vault for any period of time open a bank account with them. The bank representatives have so far been unable to explain why this account is being required. According to the Customer

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin held a meeting on Zlatoust Metallurgical Plant’s (ZMZ) problems. The meeting was attended by Chairman of the regional Legislative Assembly Vladimir Myakush, Deputy Governor Yuri Klepov, Minister for Industry Evgeniy Teftelev, and Mayor of Zlatoust Dmitriy Migashkin. As for the plant, the General Director of Estar Group Mikhail Rakov, his first Deputy Nikolai Kamyshev, CEO ZMZ Sergey Khomyanin and ZMZ’s Chairman of Trade Union Marat Safiev were present. Sumin declared the current situation was unacceptable. ‘The crisis has affected the region’s entire