Barclays Bank announced recently that they were planning to open a representation in Yekaterinburg after the decision to this extent was taken in the course of an extraordinary general meeting. The representation will probably welcome its first customers on October 15, 2009 and is to be located at 10 Khokhryakov St. As a matter of fact, the business center situated there already hosts Unicreditbank. According to Forbes’s Russian edition, Barclays Group had $11.8bn worth of losses in 2008.

Rostourism issued an order on September 21, 2009 that excluded Slavyanka-Tur Travel Company from the United Federal Register of tour operators. This Sverdlovsk Region-based company failed to produce any evidence of having the necessary financial security for the new operating period, the spokesperson for Rostourism says.

Local environmental group activists are going to hold a press conference in Yekaterinburg on September 30, 2009. They intend to voice their protests against the policies of Reftinskaya state district power plant’s (Enel OGK-5) management. First, twenty concerned dwellers of Sverdlovsk Region-based Altynai, Sukhoi Log, and Reftinskiy settlements carried out a picket in the center of Yekaterinburg on September 25, 2009. This was done to protest against the illegitimate actions of Reftinskaya. Environmentalists report the plant’s prospective switch to dry ash handling production is bad for the

Pnevmostroymashina is now on the list of companies whose debt to the Russian Federation budget has exceeded 1 million RUR. The list was has been prepared by Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Tax Service; it comprises 187 legal entities altogether.

Evroset Yekaterinburg is now on the list of companies whose debt to the Russian Federation budget has exceeded 1 million RUR. The list was has been prepared by Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Tax Service; it comprises 187 legal entities altogether.

Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko recently chaired its recession-fighting committee’s meeting in Yekaterinburg. In his opening speech, the executive mentioned a few local enterprises whose performance looked particularly worrying to both the regional government and the public prosecution authorities. Tavdinskiy machine-building plant, Egorshinskiy radio plant, Lobvinskiy biochemical plant, Pnevmostroymashina, AMUR car factory, and VSMPO-Avisma were some of these ‘troublemakers’. Nikolai Vinnichenko said these

The dwellers of Sverdlovsk Region-based Altynai, Sukhoi Log, and Reftinskiy settlements carried out a picket in the center of Yekaterinburg on September 25, 2009. This was done to protest against the illegitimate actions of Reftinskaya state district power plant (Enel OGK-5). Ten people took part in the event altogether. The picket coordinators report they are outraged by the enormous environmental degradation caused by the plant’s performance. They aim to make sure the results of the public hearings (which, in their turn, were carried out with numerous violations) are declared invalid. ‘We

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin decided to allocate 121 million RUR to complete the construction of some social infrastructure facilities. The spokesperson for the Governor reports 50 million RUR will be directed to an apartment block in the north-west of Chelyabinsk. The block’s hundred apartments are meant for the local actors and performers. The construction process is to be supervised by South Ural Housing Construction and Mortgage Agency. The new homes will have become available by July 2010. Then, two schools in the villages of Kusa and Zlokazovo will receive 25 million RUR

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin decided to allocate 121 million RUR to complete the construction of some social infrastructure facilities. The spokesperson for the Governor reports 50 million RUR will be directed to an apartment block in the north-west of Chelyabinsk. The block’s hundred apartments are meant for the local actors and performers. The construction process is to be supervised by South Ural Housing Construction and Mortgage Agency. The new homes will have become available by July 2010. Then, two schools in the villages of Kusa and Zlokazovo will receive 25 million RUR

TGK-9, the power supplier, no longer holds any share in Artemovskaya power station. Prior to this, the supplier used to have a 110% shareholding in Artemovskaya.

Uralskiy Val, the consumer electronics and white goods chain store, announced it might be able to pay off its debts in full despite the recently initiated bankruptcy proceedings. The company placed its insolvency application with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court last summer. The chain had 193.29 million RUR worth of debts at the time and operated nineteen stores, of which eleven were located in Yekaterinburg and eight were based in Kurgan, Miass, Kachkanar, Pervouralsk, Zlatoust, Snezhinsk, Revda, and Kushva. The court accepted the application on July 20, 2009. In the course of the court’s

The dwellers of Sverdlovsk Region-based Altynai and Reftinskiy settlements plan to carry out a picket in the center of Yekaterinburg on September 25, 2009. The reason for the picketing is the enormous environmental degradation caused by Reftinskaya state district power plant’s performance. By taking this direct action, the villagers are hoping to attract Sverdlovsk Region Governor’s attention. ‘There are a lot of questions we’d like to ask the plant’s management. For one, after the locals had protested against the introduction of the dangerous dry ash handling system, the management organized

‘We still cannot understand why we have been getting such strange assessment of the enterprise and its managers’ activity from Sverdlovsk Region Government. We have to declare that a whole range of claims made at the administration’s latest anti-crisis committee meeting are simply not true,’ reports Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Enterprise. What happened at the meeting (chaired by Governor Eduard Rossel) was that the plant’s management’s actions were criticized bitterly by the government officials. For one, they disapproved of the prospective 6,000 layoffs, of the company’s only

‘Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Enterprise did receive the state order for some defense industry products, but it still hasn’t got any civil produce orders. Russian Railways Public Company, for instance, only placed the order for 6,000 gondola cars in 2009, even though the two companies’ original agreement for 2008-2010 provided for the delivery of 40,500 gondola cars. Then, the enterprise has some orders for cisterns, but these cannot be produced due to lack of a new coating production line. In fact, this line won’t even be commissioned this year. To make matters worse, no road

‘We are going to have our sales policy modified because of the recent market changes,’ Avtoland Holding Management Company’s Marketing and Advertising Director Svetlana Petrovikh said to an UrBC reporter. Avtoland Holding used to be Ford Motor Company’s only official dealer in Yekaterinburg, but the car manufacturer recently selected Okami and Avtosan as its local dealers as well. ‘Ford Motor Company keeps opening tenders for new dealers in Yekaterinburg every year, so two new dealers have been chosen this time. Avtoland feels this is a good thing. We believe in fair competition,’ Petrovikh

Alfa-Bank Group’s performance was a bit worse in the first half of 2009 than before. The group’s total assets, for instance, plunged by 15% (from $27.1bn down to $23bn). The group’s financial report, drawn up in accordance with the IAS, was published a few days ago. According to this report, the decrease in the asset value had to do with the ongoing economic recession that has been affecting the bank’s lending portfolio and the borrowers’ paying capacity. The group’s total lending portfolio had shrunk by 20.2% down to $15.3bn by June 30, 2009 against December 31, 2008.

‘The problems Ural Tire Plant has been experiencing are only getting worse. There are some reasons for this, too: Russian car factories are working less and making people redundant, so they need fewer tires now. The only way out is for the plant to follow suit, that is, to stop producing goods that don’t enjoy demand and to have some layoffs,’ SIBUR-Russian Tires Corporate Communications Department said to UrBC. ‘The company is, in fact, forced to make this decision. If we don’t launch stoppages and layoffs now, the short-term socio-economic consequences will be much more serious, SIBUR

‘X5 Retail Group’s Ural branch is planning to set up Carousel supermarket in KomsoMall Trade & Entertainment Center, but this will only happen in 2010 because of the problems the developer is having at the moment. In fact, DVI Holding started having a hard time as early as last spring, so in May 2009, they warned us about these difficulties,’ Director of X5 Retail Group’s Ural branch’s Alexei Krasnikov reports. In the meantime, the mall’s developer DVI Ural is now undergoing bankruptcy proceedings. ‘Despite the developer’s recent bankruptcy, X5 isn’t going to give up on its plans. After

West Siberian Iron & Steel Plant (Evras Holding member) will have to make 1,000 people redundant on October 1, 2009. This amounts to over 6% of the staff, most of whom will be people well into their retirement age. Evraz Holding intends to provide them with the redundancy package, however. This will include incidental allowances ranging from 90,000 RUR to 200,000 RUR per worker,’ Governor of Kemerov Region Aman Tuleev was recently quoted as saying by RBC Daily. Meanwhile, Evraz announced early in September 2009 that its enterprises went back to their full production capacity and needed

Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank) is going to introduce new service rates on October 6, 2009. The changes will affect services rendered to legal entities, sole traders, and self-employed private individuals. This news has been announced via the bank’s official website. For one, the bank will now charge a commission for the administration of accounts that have remained unused for a certain period of time. For instance, a commission of 5,500 RUR will be charged if a ruble settlement account that hasn’t been used for any transactions for a while. The commission charged for an unused