Bank VTB set a five-billion-ruble loan limit for Sverdlovsk Region. This money can be used to finance the current budget deficit, the temporary cash discrepancies, government liabilities, or loans to legal entities under the region’s state guarantees, the bank’s press officer reports. This loan will be used in accordance with the existing legislative requirements. The money is to be obtained through a public auction among Sverdlovsk Region’s largest banks. At the moment, the region’s government is considering Bank VTB’s offer to take part in an auction that concerns the first transaction

The losses of OAO Ural Railway Machine-Building Plant came to 85.56 million RUR in the second quarter of 2010. In the first quarter of the year, the figure came to 113.75 million RUR. The company explains its losses decreased due to the dropping prime cost of the commodities, products, and services sold.

20.1% of OOO Mount Volchikha Ski Resort’s authorized capital is now offered for sale, the trustee in bankruptcy of OOO Mikhailov Enterprise Daniil Mazurovskiy says. The opening bid has been determined at 14.54 million RUR. OOO Mikhailov Enterprise was declared bankrupt by Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court in September 2009. The insolvency application regarding Mount Volchikha Ski Resort was laid with the court by OAO Bank VTB.

The international rating agency promoted the national scale rating of West-Siberian Commercial Bank (ZapSibComBank) from ruBBB- to ruBBB and raised the bank’s bond rating from ruBBB- to ruBBB as well. Now the bank currently has 1.5 billion RUR worth of bonds with a 12% annual coupon interest rate; the bonds are to be retired in 2011. In addition, Standard & Poor's affirmed the bank’s В-/С long-term and short-term contractor credit rating, with Stable rating outlook. ‘ZapSibComBank’s ratings were increased because the bank showed some more distinct signs of recovering its paying

Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin met with a delegation of Pakistani entrepreneurs in Yekaterinburg. The Plenipotentiary Minister of Pakistan’s Embassy in Russia and Director of the Trade Department Mohammad Ghauri said the visit had to do with the prospective participation of the Pakistani President in a four-party summit in Sochi in August 2010. The Minister declared the Pakistani Government saw cooperating with Russia in terms of trade and economy as its top priority at the moment. Anatoly Gredin told his guests about the Mid-Urals’ business potential and the largest

BOD Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov was elected President of Russian Steel Non-Commercial Partnership. This decision was taken at the partnership’s annual general meeting, MMK reports. Russian Steel Non-Commercial Partnership was set up in 2001 by Russia’s leading metallurgical companies to coordinate their efforts aimed at protecting the Russian metallurgical community’s interests on both the home and foreign markets and to implement some non-profit projects. The members of the Partnership manufacture 65% of Russia’s cast iron, 53% of the country’s

The projected Italian Quarter on the northern shore of Lake Shartash in Yekaterinburg might lose its primary developer. The General Director of Atomstroycomplex Valeriy Ananyev announced he was not going to stay in the project any longer. The Italian Quarter was a project devised within the framework of a cooperation agreement between Yekaterinburg and Genoa. The construction site near Northern Shartash was meant for an ‘Italian village’. The construction started in 2005 but had to be frozen in July 2008. According to the regional government’s latest statements, ?500m were needed to resume

Pipe Metallurgical Company’s (TMK) OOO Truboplast set up an ad hoc committee in order to investigate the causes of a fatal accident on the company’s premises. The accident occurred at the company’s production site rented from ZAO Ural Turbine Plant recently. According to the preliminary data available, a cover fastener broke off while workers were fitting some insulation and waterproof coating onto a polymeric pipe, leaving two people heavily injured. The workers had to be taken to Yekaterinburg Central Municipal Hospital 23; one of them, Sergey Pokromovitch, passed away in the clinic. The

The coordinator of RealAutoGroup car owners cooperative and of OOO RealAutoGroup Financial & Industrial Holding was detained in Krasnodar and will be taken by the police to Chelyabinsk, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s Administration of the Russian Federation General Prosecutor’s Office reports. The law-enforcement agencies operating in various Russian regions have instituted over 160 criminal lawsuits involving the man in question altogether. The charges are based on Article 159 (part 4) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (large-scale fraud); the lawsuits have been filed

Sverdlovsk Region-based metallurgical companies keep building up on their production outputs throughout the year 2010. According to the data provided by the Federal State Statistics Service’s local division, the regional enterprises produced 7.4% more steel (up to 3.53 million tons) and 11.9% more bar iron (up to 2.42 million tons) in the first half of 2010 compared with a year earlier. In addition, the regional rolled steel output rose by 7.4% and reached 2.687 million tons.

‘The investor of Demidov Business Center has no money at the moment, so it is impossible for the time being to be quite sure that the center will be finished in the nearest future,’ Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy said in a recent interview to From Their Own Lips TV program. ‘We know they are now on the look-out for someone who’d buy the tower. In fact, there is not too much work left to do: the main structure has already been completed, so the building would be finished off in eighteen to twenty-four months. In terms of functions, the tower is going to be a business center and an

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is going to resume the investigation of the case involving Limerence shopping center and Extreme Fitness Athletics gym chain. The case No. 39 involves OOO Krona and Limerence’s management, who are charged with violating Article 18 (part 1) of the Advertising Act. The offense allegedly consisted in the companies sending out text messages with ads to mobile phone users who hadn’t previously agreed to this. The complaint was initially placed by a local citizen. The committee which started considering the case decided to put the

Sverdlovsk Region’s environmental prosecution authorities inspected ZAO Ural Turbine Plant and found a number of legal offenses there. It was detected that the steam- and gas-driven turbine manufacturer has been dumping manufacturing water in the River Iset, through the River Osnovinka and the River Melkovka. The plant also fails to ensure the necessary treatment of hazardous effluents. The authorities determined that the company’s waste treatment plants located in Uchiteley St. in Yekaterinburg do not operate to their full capacity, which is why the plant occasionally dumps waste effluents

The passengers of Ural Airlines who use Domodedovo Airport in Moscow can now order a fish meal for their flight free of charge. The fish menu is available since July 27, 2010 on any of the carrier’s scheduled flights except for those bound for the countries of the CIS. Now Ural Airlines also makes it possible for the passengers traveling to certain destinations to order other kinds of special menus. For one, people flying to Moscow can choose between the traditional main course with starters and a vegetarian meal or a light breakfast. The new service makes fish dishes available as well. This

Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport witnessed a great increase in the number of passengers traveling to Sharm El Sheikh, Hurghada, Bangkok, and Antalya in the first half of 2010. As for the countries of the near abroad, more people flew to Dushanbe, Namangan, Hudzhand, and Tashkent than in the six months of 2009. As far as domestic flights go, Saint Petersburg has become a more popular destination this year.

The trade turnover of YIT declined by 5%, or down to 1.62 billion RUR this year compared with the year 2009. Still, the company’s pre-tax profit grew by 39% and up to ?54.6m against 2009, the concern’s PR Service in Russia informed the media. YIT runs a number of regional offices in Russia, including one in Yekaterinburg. According to the company’s estimates, their trade turnover will go up this year compared with the year 2009; so will their pre-tax profit. ‘It’s obvious that fewer investment homes were built in both Russia and Finland in January-June 2010 against last year. The figures are

The construction of Ural Federal University’s campus on the shores of Lake Shartash will not begin any time before 2013, the university’s Rector Viktor Koksharov announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. The projected campus is to consist of buildings that will house the schools, the student dormitories, a hospital, a library, and an information center as well as some sports facilities. ‘The federal programs do not cover the construction expenses at the moment. This is true not only of our university, this is a general situation for all colleges,’ Koksharov said today. The shores of

The experts of Sverdlovsk Region Hygiene and Epidemiology Center’s consumer rights protection department studied the nature of customer complaints received in the second quarter of 2010 and came to the conclusion that companies and organizations keep violating consumers’ rights. Moreover, the number of the unhappy customers’ petitions against various sole traders and legal entities keeps growing. As far as the financial services sector is concerned, local residents mainly protest against the additional incidental and monthly commissions some banks illegitimately charge for the administration

OAO Koltsovo-Invest’s only stockholder decided not to distribute or pay any share dividend for the year 2009 because the company made no profit last year.

Some representatives of the Pakistani business community are going to meet their Ural counterparts in the Ural Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday, July 26, 2010. It has been announced that Yekaterinburg will host the executives of companies dealing in textiles, food manufacturing, and industrial equipment.