‘Foreign banks and crediting agencies are willing to cooperate with the Russian companies and are very positive about Russia’s future economic development,’ Landesbank Berlin AG Export Financing Director Bernd Schmidt announced at an Interfax press conference. ‘Sometimes direct interaction is possible, including cases when a bank and agency finance some long-term projects. In most cases, however, a customer needs some Russian bank as an intermediary. Actually, we choose our Russian partners very carefully and work only with the most reliable banks,’ he added.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court resolved case А60-45339/2009-С11 as of November 2, 2009 by declaring DEKRA PLUS insolvent. The company will now have to undergo six-month bankruptcy proceedings. Vladimir Rozhdestvenskiy of Delo Self-Regulatory Organization of Trustees in Bankruptcy Noncommercial Partnership has been appointed the company’s trustee in bankruptcy.

The sales revenues of Sverdlovsk Region-based VSMPO-Avisma went down by 3.6 billion RUR, or 16% in January-September 2009. The revenue figure thus only came to 19.2 billion RUR. The company says the revenues dropped because of reduced sales output. However, the drop in sales revenues was partially made up for by 18% decrease in the prime cost of the company’s produce, VSMPO-Avisma Corporation says. The corporation’s gross profit declined by 7.5 billion RUR, or 12.6% in the third quarter of 2009. Its net profit plunged by 33.4% and amounted to 977.171 million RUR, whereas the return on assets

The internal rules and policy of Bank VTB Severo-Zapad and Citibank Commercial Bank have not been approved of by the Federal Financial Market Service so as to prevent money laundering

‘Yekaterinburg’s automobile market has shrunk by 40% to 45% since the recession started. This is why we are going to have only one of the three initially planned show rooms commissioned this year. This will be our motor show in the city’s Zheleznodorozhniy district. All in all, five show rooms in Metallurgov St. have had to be frozen,’ Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev said at a press briefing in Yekaterinburg. The frozen show rooms belong to Volkswagen, Nissan, Mitsubishi, and UralFranceAvto. As for the BMW show room, it won’t be opened this year, but the construction process has

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin met his special representative in the town of Karabash Vyacheslav Yagodinets. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, Vyacheslav Yagodinets made a report on the results of his performance in the capacity of a special representative. He explained that he had been cooperating closely with the acting Mayor Tatiana Pankratova in such areas as getting ready for the winter, upgrading the public housing services sector, and supporting the social infrastructure. The official asked Petr Sumin to help introduce street lamps on the main streets and next

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin held a meeting with the General Director of Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company Andrei Kozitsin. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, Petr Sumin met the new head of Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant Andrei Panshin during this meeting. Also, Andrei Kozitsin informed the Governor of the preliminary results of the enterprise’s performance in 2009 and spoke of its plans for 2010. Kozitsin believes zinc will be sold for about $1,800 per ton in 2010, which will mean the plant will be able to break even or make a profit and thus pay more taxes to the