‘612 buildings have been inspected by fire safety officials in Sverdlovsk Region. Forty-nine buildings have been declared unsafe, so the businesses within will have to be closed down. Out of these forty-nine organizations, ten have already stopped operating,’ head of Sverdlovsk Region State Fire Surveillance Administration Vadim Zubarev announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The inspections revealed over 4,000 violations of fire safety requirements. So, 340 top executives will have to face some administrative pressure. Amazingly, only 63 out of 612 buildings (that is, 10%) have

BOD Chairman of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) Dmitriy Pumpyanskiy was unanimously elected the new Chair of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Sverdlovsk Region division. He succeeded Vladimir Semenov in this position. The election procedure took place during an extended meeting of the Union’s regional division. This regional division of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs was founded in 1991 as an independent entity and merged with the Union in 1999. In December 2005, this organization was re-registered as Sverdlovsk Region Union of Industrialists and

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin’s official website (www.amisharin.ru) can now be found online. The Governor’s web resource provides users with some updates on the official’s activity, the Governor’s orders and provisions, and links to the websites of Sverdlovsk Region’s major government authorities. The website also features Alexander Misharin’s video blog with his first address to the region’s dwellers.

It has been suggested that Viktor Koltunyuk, Vladimir Vlasov, and Anatoly Levchenko should become Sverdlovsk Region’s Ministers for Finance, Social Policy, and State Property Management, respectively. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin and Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin keep recruiting a new Cabinet. The proposals for the new Ministers for Finance, Social Policy, and State Property Management were officially presented to the region’s Duma on December 21, 2009. Under Sverdlovsk Region’s Charter, the Duma must either support or turn down these proposals.

Russian people no longer fear taking loans and have been applying for them more and more often, SKB-Bank’s press officer refers to Profi Online Research analysts as saying. The analysts did a survey on consumers based in large Russian cities and came to the conclusion that the demand for loans has gone up by over 7% since the beginning of the year. For one, some 77% of respondents said they would like to borrow money from a bank in the first quarter of 2009; in the third quarter, the number of such respondents rose to 85%. ‘The economic situation is growing more stable, so Russians are

‘In spite of the harsh weather conditions, 1.5 million tons of crops and plenty of vegetables have been harvested in the region this year,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said at a recent press conference. The Governor also noted 278,000 tons of meat had been produced, including 150,000 tons of poultry. ‘Our farmers have learned to manage their money well, so our agribusiness lending portfolio increased to 10 billion RUR in 2009. This money is used to improve the production facilities, launch new technologies, and implement large-scale investment projects. In 2010, the region’s

1.4 million sq m of new housing will have been launched in Chelyabinsk Region by the end of 2009. This figure falls short of the previous year’s one by 600,000 sq m, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin announced at his end-of-year press conference. ‘This year’s hardships experienced by the building industry actually boosted the federal housing overhaul program. As a result, about 3,000 apartment buildings have been repaired this year and 5,000 people were relocated from slums. This cost the region 4 billion RUR. The money was mainly supplied from the Communal Housing Services Reform

Trust National Bank has been brought into the limelight by the media recently when a few online magazines carried some articles that were highly critical of the bank’s financial policy. Trust was accused of taking unnecessarily high financial risks and of trying to exert pressure on the government through customer lobby groups. The articles maintain that the bank is going through a period of financial hardships and is allegedly on the brink of default. The management is supposedly trying to save the business by selling the bank’s shares to state-run Rosneft. The publications also claim that

‘The third extension to Tikhvin Club House was commissioned at the beginning of 2009. At the moment, the demand for the apartments in the building is neither growing nor declining. We used to sign sale contracts on a regular basis, but now we get one month of idleness followed by two or three sales in a row in the following month,’ General Director of Forum Group Sergey Vorobiev said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg dedicated to the end-of-year performance of the local real estate market. ‘As for putting up a new Forum Mall where the old Central Market used to be, this project of ours

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court started looking into OOO Romanskiy Stil’s insolvency application on December 18, 2009. The company placed its application with the court on November 20, 2009. Romanskiy Stil deals in wholesale and retail sales of top-of-the-range building materials. The trustee in bankruptcy will probably be chosen among the members of Severo-Zapad Self-Regulatory Organization of Trustees in Bankruptcy Noncommercial Partnership.

‘The Arbitration Court is now processing the protest placed by Investtorgstroy against the 40,000- ruble fine we imposed on the company for improper advert (containing the word ‘Crikey’) of their new block of apartment buildings called Zelenaya Roscha,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service said to UrBC. The FAS’s regional division stated on August 11, 2009 that the advertisement of a newly built living quarter in Yekaterinburg was improper because of the slang word (‘Crikey’) it contained. The use of slang is actually forbidden by Article 5

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps handling the claim laid by Yekaterinburg’s Verkh-Isetskiy district tax inspectorate (on behalf of the Russian Federation Tax Service) against Aston Construction Company. The plaintiff insists that Aston be declared bankrupt, the spokesperson for the court reports. The tax inspectorate maintains that Aston hasn’t paid it the 953,884.95-ruble debt in three entire months. The inspectorate refers to Articles 3,7,33, 41, and 39 (paragraph 5) of the Federal Insolvency Act as the legal grounds for declaring the construction company bankrupt. The court

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin allocated 1 million RUR from the region’s budget to the town of Miass. The spokesperson for the Governor reports the better part of money (625,500 RUR) is to be directed to local schools. Miass School No. 1 that will celebrate its 110th anniversary next year is going to receive 198,000 RUR worth of new armchairs for the assembly hall. School No. 36 located in Syrostan settlement will have got an extension by the end of winter. 70,000 RUR will be spent on the finishing jobs, installation of windows, and buying a new hot-water generator and a pumping

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin held a meeting on the problems of local mining towns and the prospects of the region’s coal mining industry. The meeting was attended by First Deputy Governor Vladimir Dyatlov, mayors of Kopeisk, Korkino, and Yemanzhelinsk, and General Director of Chelyabinsk Coal Company Konstantin Strukov. The agenda of the meeting contained issues related to the socioeconomic situation in the local mining towns and to the performance of Chelyabinsk Coal Company. Governor Sumin was mainly interested in the unemployment rates and the efficiency of measures taken to

‘We first considered building a third extension to Greenwich Trade & Entertainment Center three and a half years ago. A year later, the construction process began. About 2.5 million RUR has been spent on the new building, of which about 40% came from our own funds, while the rest was borrowed from Raiffeisen-Bank. Remarkably, once the recession has kicked in, we actually started paying less on this loan, as our interest rate was LIBOR-dependent,’ the co-founder of 73 Malyshev St Society Igor Zavodovskiy said at a press conference devoted to the opening of Greenwich Trade &

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court began considering the claim laid by Bank VTB’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary against Rostransavto. The plaintiff demands that the defendant be declared bankrupt. The bank insists that Rostransavto is unable to meet its creditors’ claims, as its debts outstrip the cost of its assets. Rostransavto is a large business dealing in the supplies of road construction appliances, freight vehicles, communal housing services and warehouse machinery, and spare parts to the customers based in the Urals and Siberia. The company is also the official dealer of TK Kommash,

Polaris chain stores located at 99 Lenin St and 8d Vosmoye Marta St in Yekaterinburg recently closed down. Nevertheless, the company still provides its earlier customers with warranty services locally. The country-wide computer chain store was founded in 1998 and comprised over fifty outlets in various Russian regions. The company’s core business activity was focused on the retail sales.

‘We have already signed sixty-one rental contracts, which covers 100% of Alatyr Mall shopping area. However, our tenants did not expect us to open the mall on time, so most of them are still unprepared to move in their new stores. Adidas, for example, is not going to start working before New Year,’ head of TEN Development Management Company and project investor Sergey Trofimov announced at a press briefing in Yekaterinburg. The briefing was dedicated to the recent launch of Alatyr Mall. ‘We are planning to open 61% of shops in January; by February, the figure will have risen to 80%, and by

Bank VTB’s Yekaterinburg branch placed its application with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, asking that Gora Volchikha Ski Resort be declared bankrupt. The bank originally laid a claim against Mikhailov Enterprise and Gora Volchikha Ski Resort as early as in the summer of 2009. The bank then insisted on being paid 63.52 million RUR. The court agreed to have the defendant’s mortgaged property – the artificial snow-making equipment and four lifting devices – arrested and forbade Mikhailov Enterprise, RevdaDorStroy, and other parties to take any action aimed at alienation of disputed assets.

The rating agency affirmed Sverdlovsk Region’s long-term credit rating at BB, with Stable Rating Outlook, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Economics and Labor reports. Standard & Poor’s said the regional ratings can’t grow further because of the deeply felt economic recession which, in combination with limited flexibility and predictability of the budget indicators, leads to a currently weakened regional budget balance. What is more, the metallurgical and pipe-manufacturing enterprises comprise the lion’s share of the regional economy, which makes Sverdlovsk Region