The international rating agency has recently changed the Rating Outlook for long-term credit ratings of fourteen Russian banks from Negative to Stable. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was among these banks; in addition, Standard & Poor's affirmed the bank’s credit rating at the earlier level of B- and the national scale rating at ruBBB-. ‘These changes signify that Standard & Poor's believes the situation on the Russian banking market has grown more stable. We feel the banks have already gone through the worst as far as bad debt is concerned, while the

According to Sergey Verkhoturov, Mayor of Krasnoturyinsk, Sverdlovsk Region, the town’s budget revenues were much smaller in 2009 than the year before. ‘We receive less from the town’s major enterprises, including UC RUSAL’s Bogoslovskiy smelter. The reason for this is that the plant had to shut down 35% of its aluminum production facilities and to lay off over 1,000 workers,’ the Mayor said. ‘The smelter’s aluminum production shrank by 37% last year. This year, the plant will probably keep cutting back on production and laying off employees. UC RUSAL’s Moscow headquarters won’t listen to any

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin said the top executives of Verkhnyaya Salda-based VSMPO-Avisma Corporation would have to come to a special committee meeting. Mayor of Verkhnyaya Salda Nikolai Tikhonov explained to Alexander Misharin in the course of a videoconference that the town’s own revenues for 2009 only amounted to 72% of the sum obtained in the year 2008, and the forecast for the year 2010 said the tax payments would only reach 62% of the sum received in the year 2009. The Mayor claimed the town’s dropping revenues had to do with shrinking production at VSMPO-Avisma

The customs and law-enforcement officers of Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region keep doing regular checks of ‘dubious’ retail outlets this year. Once the representatives of two types of authorities have joined their efforts, detection and prevention of crimes has become more effective. For example, the officers confiscated 630 pirated items from the local stores in the first quarter of 2010. This figure was three times greater than that for the first quarter of 2009. The experts who carried out an examination of the goods declared all of them were counterfeited clothing and footwear items

The Federal Financial Market Service of the Russian Federation recently halted the issue of OAO Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Corporation’s ordinary registered paperless shares. The plant is based in Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region. The share issue in question is an additional one registered on December 17, 2009. The issue consists of 9 million shares with face value of 1,000 RUR each. The additional issue’s state serial number is 1-01-55004-F-003D.