OAO MMK Group keeps implementing its energy-saving program for the year 2010. The program was adopted through order of OOO MMK Management Company’s President Viktor Rashnikov and involves a number of measures aimed at saving electric power, fuel, heat, the products of air separation, and fire-fighting, drinking, and manufacturing water. In the first half of 2010, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and its daughter enterprises completed thirty-four energy-saving projects and are about to finish a few more. These projects covered replacing the traditional light bulbs with energy-saving

‘In the first half of the year, Sverdlovsk Region’s government kept trying to get more budget revenues: for one, we did our best to sign more contracts on socioeconomic cooperation with the local enterprises. So far, forty-two such agreements have already been signed. In fact, we had talks with Evraz Group a little while ago. By now, the agreement with Evraz is either signed or just about to be,’ Sverdlovsk Region’s Finance Minister Konstantin Koltonyuk said at a press briefing in Yekaterinburg. ‘This is actually a standard agreement, with only minor changes appearing in each particular

ZAO Sberkarta’s stockholders decided at the general meeting that the company should go into liquidation, the joint stock company’s website states. Sberbank of Russia announced it was going to give up on Sberkarta as early as the beginning of the year. The bank’s management then said the technology involved in the manufacturing of the card did not meet the modern standards. ZAO Sberkarta was set up in October 2005 by Sberbank of Russia, the National Reserve Bank, Interregional Investment Bank (MIB), RG Leasing, and Austria-based BGS Smartcard Systems A.G. Sberkarta was expected to coordinate

OOO VIZ-Stal (part of NLMK Group) came up with a project on the technical upgrade of its waste water treatment facility. Upon the completion of the project, the plant will stop dumping waste water in the River Iset altogether. ‘The amount of waste water dumped by the plant at the moment actually fits within the maximum permissible discharge limits and comes to about 0.05% of the total amount of pollutants dumped in water bodies in Yekaterinburg. The plant currently recycles 95% of its water, whereas the average figure for the city’s industrial sites comes to only 65%. VIZ-Stal does not exceed

OAO Ural Airlines announced the launch of special price offers on tickets to Prague, Rome, Dubai, and Tel Aviv. If you buy your tickets on September 1-30, 2010, the company’s fees will come at half-price. Under the terms of this offer, the flight has to take place between November 15, 2010 and December 20, 2010 or between January 20, 2011 and February 28, 2011.

Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Markets Service completed its scheduled field check of ZAO SberInvestBank and desk audit of OAO ZapSibKomBank. The investigations revealed a number of offenses in the banks’ activity, so the companies were ordered to eliminate the legal violations and warned against repeating the offenses.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 27, 2010. The offices of Koltsovo Customs (part of Ural Customs Administration) had to file two administrative offense protocols featuring a certain citizen K. when checking Friday’s Beijing-Yekaterinburg flight. Both protocols involve charges based on Article 14.10 of the Russian Federation Administrative Offense Code (illegal use of registered trademarks/intellectual property). The woman’s luggage contained twelve tracksuits bearing Nike logos, twenty-four fake Adidas tracksuits, and six pirated Adidas backpacks, all of which was confiscated and transferred to a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 27, 2010. The dividends of Concern Kalina’s stockholders remained the same in the first half of 2010 as they were in the second half of 2009. The decision to this extent was made at the extraordinary general meeting the other day. The first half of this year will result in the dividend of 10.66 RUR per ordinary share (in Russian rubles or in foreign currency, with the exchange rate introduced by the Central Bank of Russia on the payment day) within thirty days of the meeting. In the second half of 2009, the dividends also came to 10.66 RUR per share.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 27, 2010. OAO European-Asian Company is no longer a co-founder of OOO Ural-Siberia-Les. Prior to this change, the Company used to own 100% of Ural-Siberia-Les’s shares.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 27, 2010. Standard & Poor's, the international rating agency, promoted OAO Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank’s rating outlook from Stable to Positive recently. At the same time, the contractor’s long-term B+, short-term B, and the national scale ruA+ credit ratings have remained the same. ‘The new outlook reflects our feeling that the negative impact of the economic downfall has actually done less harm to Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank than we’d expected; moreover, the bank proved to operate rather stably in financial terms,’ says Standard & Poor's credit analyst

UrBC, Moscow, August 27, 2010. Russian Railways Public Company’s Board of Directors met in Moscow to confirm the introduction of OAO Second Freight Company in Sverdlovsk Region, the spokesperson for the region’s Governor reports. Alexander Misharin was actually invited by President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin to take part in the meeting. The railway company reports they hope Second Freight Company is to become Russia’s second largest freight business in terms of fleet.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Economics is currently working on a set of documents necessary to place an application regarding the creation of Titanium Valley (a special economic zone for industrial purposes) with Russia’s Ministry for Economic Development. The application is supposed to be submitted in December 2010, upon which it is to be considered by an ad hoc governmental committee which is to decide whether the project looks expedient or not. ‘The federal authorities are generally positive about the project. This is now the matter of how fast and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. Sverdlovsk Region Duma deputy Andrei Alshevskikh placed his complaint regarding the Former Hydropathical Establishment, a monument of architecture recently pulled down in the center of Yekaterinburg, with the region’s Ministry of Culture and public prosecution authorities. The nineteenth century building was situated on the premises of a construction site for Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch new, high-rise office building in Rosa Luxemburg St. The bank originally signed a contract for the restoration of the building, but the piece got demolished instead.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. 1,500 companies and organizations dealt in foreign trade in the Yekaterinburg Customs zone between January 1, 2010 and August 20, 2010. These entities submitted a total of 33,600 cargo manifests on the cargo transfer mode and specifications that get accounted for in the customs foreign trade statistics, Ural Customs Administration’s press service reports. The foreign trade turnover rose by 23.9% over the said period compared with January-August 2009; the cargo turnover went up by 13.1%, the number of submitted cargo manifests increased by 21.2%, and the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. As always, Sverdlovsk Region mainly exported metals and metal goods and the produce of the chemical and the machine-building industries in January-June 2010, reports the region’s Ministry for International and Foreign Economic Relations. In fact, the export delivery volumes are going up faster than Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial production does; the latter went up by 10% in the first half of 2010. In terms of prices, the metal deliveries rose by 42%. For one, the ferrous metals export increased by 31%, the export of ferrous metals-based products went up

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. The court of Serov, Sverdlovsk Region, returned the verdict of guilty upon the director of OOO TK Alliance, who illegally used some copyright protected software in his business, the press officer of Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities reports. The court ruled that Alliance’s General Director illegitimately copied and installed a number of software programs belonging to ZAO 1C and Microsoft Corporation on his hard drive. ‘The businessman’s actions did over 220,000 RUR worth of damage to the copyright owners,’ the prosecution authorities

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 25, 2010. Russia’s Federal Financial Market Service annulled the license allowing Chelyabinsk-based OOO Magister Management Company to deal in investment fund management, unit trust management, or private retirement funds. The Service reports the decision was taken after the company had submitted a corresponding application and the official proof of having no unfulfilled business liabilities.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 25, 2010. Starting this August, OAO METCOMBANK’s customers can take out a mortgage on more appealing terms thanks to two new programs, Maternity Capital and New Building. The Maternity Capital scheme allows the mortgage-takers to buy a place on both the existing and the new homes market, whereas the New Building one gives one a chance to buy a new home on a mortgage with a decreased interest rate. The interest rate, in fact, comes to 10.5% and up; the buildings must be under three years old.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 25, 2010. According to the Bank of Russia’s latest six-month report, Sverdlovsk Region-based banks issued a total of 44.81 billion RUR worth of consumer loans to private individuals, which was 5.58 billion RUR more than six months earlier. OAO SKB-Bank proved the Urals’ No. 1 bank in terms of growing consumer lending portfolio, the bank’s press service reports.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 25, 2010. 575,090 sq m of housing was introduced in Sverdlovsk Region in January-July 2010. Among the cities with the greatest number of new dwellings were Yekaterinburg, with its 304,430 sq m worth of housing, Berezovskiy, with its 29,780 sq m worth of housing, and Sysert, with its 24,570 sq m worth of housing. At the same time, no new dwellings whatsoever were put up in seven regional towns in the first half of the year. All in all, 130.9 sq m on average were put up for every 1,000 local dwellers in Sverdlovsk Region. This figure was greater in fifteen local