‘The car dealers still haven’t been able to reach the pre-recession sales levels comparable with the years 2007 and 2008. This means the recession is far from being over yet. The current automobile sales, in fact, only make up a quarter of what was sold in the year 2007, even though the figure could reach up to 60% if there existed sufficient car quotas,’ OOO Avtoland Holding’s Marketing & Advertising Director Svetlana Petrovikh said to UrBC. ‘The somewhat restored consumer demand has already caused a shortage of the most popular makes, so now the best-selling cars are inexpensive,

London School of Business and Finance (LSBF) and Facebook set up a JV that will allow Facebook users around the world to get free access to MBA course materials, RIA Novosti reports. All one has to do is download LSBF Global MBA application on one’s computer to get acquainted with the lectures, take part in discussions, look into case studies, ‘meet’ the top managers of the world’s leading businesses, and enjoy student interaction. The application provides the users with approximately eight hundred hours worth of multimedia materials, Vedomosti says. At least 500,000 people from around the

Swedbank Group’s OAO Swedbank will keep cutting back on its retail operations in Russia in order to concentrate on the services rendered to business customers based in Scandinavia, the bank’s new Chairwoman of the Board Elena Lozovaya said to RBC daily. ‘The bank will be going through a transition period until the year 2012. Our main future focus will be providing services to the business customers on Swedbank Group’s ‘home’ markets,’ the executive explained. OAO Swedbank already stopped offering term deposits, bank cards, and individual safety vaults to private customers on October 1, 2010.

Recession is now felt less keenly by the Russian banking system, whereas the banks’ asset quality and capital structure keep improving and the liquidity is rising due to growing deposit volumes, the international rating agency says in its report entitled Russian Banks Start to Recover as Crisis Subsides. ‘The measures taken to counteract the recession and improve the market infrastructure (especially the steps targeted at giving the banks access to liquid funds) did reduce the system risks a bit, so Fitch expects that, in case of another market emergency, banks will receive support with

‘Orenburg Airlines Goa-Yekaterinburg flight was delayed for many hours because of an emergency at Goa Airport. For one, some serious runway problems were detected, so the flight had to be postponed by ten hours. The plane took off at 3:20 PM local time, so the passengers will arrive in Yekaterinburg at 11:30 PM. Meals were provided for the travelers for the time of the delay,’ Sunrise Tour informed UrBC. Now according to Yekaterinburg Koltsovo Airport’s interactive announcement board, flight ORB-9636 was to have arrived from Goa at 11:50 AM local time.

‘We expect our rolled stock output to reach about 10 million tons by the end of the year. This is going to be 20% more than a year earlier. What’s more, the company intends to go back to its ante-recession annual output of 12 million tons as soon as next year. This means another 20% increase in production is to be expected,’ BOD Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov said in his interview to Kommersant. The executive explained MMK would fully recover after the recession thanks to the growing domestic demand and the enterprise’s carrying on with its

OAO Uralgipromez incurred 2.73 million RUR worth of losses in the third quarter of 2010, whereas just a quarter earlier, the company’s net profit reached 6.17 million RUR. Uralgipromez reports its losses result from the current situation on the design and development market.

Sverdlovsk Region is planning to get more consolidated budget revenues through taxing the specialized divisions of companies, enterprises, and contractors which are currently working on some investment projects in the region. This idea was the main issue on the agenda of a recent government meeting on support of local business chaired by the region’s Minister for Energy and Communal Housing Services Yuri Shevelev. For one, about forty sub-contractors are now involved in the construction of the fourth power generating unit at Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant. The town council of Zarechniy only

‘Yekaterinburg automobile market players tend to have their shares re-shaped and re-distributed these days. Some more changes are yet to come, so it’s a bit early to make any forecasts at the moment,’ Avtoplus Group’s PR & Internet Communications Director Tatiana Meshkoy said to UrBC. ‘In fact, the number of dealing centers our Group runs has doubled since the start of the recession: five new centers, including the ones in Omsk, Kamensk-Uralskiy, and Nizhniy Tagil, complemented the five already existing dealerships. In addition to companies specializing in Toyota, Lexus, and Audi, we now

A delegation of RENOVA-StroyGroup officials headed by President Veniamin Golubitskiy visited the chemical concern’s headquarters in Ludwigshafen upon the invitation of the company’s Board. The two enterprises actually signed a partnership intentions agreement on July 15, 2010; this was done within the framework of Saint Petersburg Dialogue intergovernmental counseling session in Yekaterinburg. Besides, the first building fitted with BASF’s Neopor thermal insulation panels has already been put up in Yekaterinburg’s Academic district. Now Neopor insulation is a sound economic and environmental

The enterprises of OOO NLMK-Sort (Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) bar and profile division) sold 1.2 million tons of metal goods in January-September 2010, which was 3.8% less than in the nine months of 2009. NLMK-Sort sold 966,000 tons of metal goods on the domestic market; this figure exceeded that for a year earlier by 16%. These sales included 758,000 tons of reinforcing bars (which was 11% better than a year earlier), 41,000 tons of rolled wire (which was 25% better than a year earlier), and 142,000 tons of metalware (which was 19% better than a year earlier). All in all, the

META Group had Lindemann ЕС 1240 hydraulic shearing press installed at ChTPZ Group’s Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant recently; this was done in preparation for the launch of Iron Ozone 32, a major steel-smelting facility. The new machinery was installed at the scrap metal warehouse on the premises of Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant. The shearing press with the capacity to process 240,000 tons of scrap metal a year is currently META Corporation’s most productive piece of equipment among all of its counterparts. One advantage of the new machine is a ten-meter chamber that allows for processing

Yekaterinburg Municipal Duma decided at today’s meeting that the recently opened ComsoMALL shopping center should be classed as a building in the downtown price area. This means the mall proprietors will have to pay a higher unified tax on imputed income of individual entrepreneurs, the proportion being 1.0. The news was reported by Head of Yekaterinburg Finance& Budget Administration Andrei Koryukov. The new tax rates apply to the contracts signed since January 1, 2011. The project has already been considered by a bribe committee. However, the malls will only have to pay tax on the

OAO TransCreditBank is not yet ready to announce the exact sum it is willing to invest in an oil refinery based in Verkhoturye, Sverdlovsk Region. ‘The amount of money the bank is to contribute to the project will be specified later on,’ TransCreditBank’s press officer said to UrBC. OAO TransCreditBank and the oil refinery signed a cooperation agreement which provides for the construction of an oil-processing plant and extraction and processing of hydrocarbon materials in Ural Federal District. The parties involved estimate the total amount of investments at $2.4bn, TransCreditBank reports.

The opening date of Venskiy Dom and Summit business centers in Yekaterinburg has been postponed till the year 2011; the news was announced at a press conference on commercial estate, where the attendees observed that the supply on this particular market still exceeded the demand. The Marketing & Project Development Director of OOO Delovoy Dom na Arkhiyereiskoy Radik Nigmatullin reported the launch of Venskiy Dom had been put off till the beginning of the year; Head of Summit Business Center’s PR Service Oksana Arsentieva added that their building would probably start operating in March

Ural Airlines is to introduce a new international destination on November 22, 2010: this is going to be a scheduled Yekaterinburg-Istanbul-Yekaterinburg flight, operated every Monday and Thursday on Airbus A320 planes. Prices start from ?269 plus fees for a return ticket.

OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and OOO Hatch Engineering & Consulting (Canada-based Hatch’s Russian branch) signed an exploratory design agreement that is intended to provide MMK with the best scheme for the development of Prioskolskoye iron ore deposit. Under this agreement, OOO Hatch Engineering & Consulting must design and transfer to MMK, the customer, the final report on their research findings. Hatch Engineering & Consulting is to do some comparative analysis in order to decide on the most efficient way to develop the deposit; their proposed method should

The top managers of RENOVA-StroyGroup State Corporation attended a press lunch with Russia’s leading media representative at the Ararat Park Hyatt Hotel in Moscow. The event was part of the company’s anniversary-celebrating program, so the reporters and the business executives had an opportunity to discuss RENOVA’s achievements at the end of its first five years in business. The reporters’ questions were answered by RENOVA-StroyGroup’s President Veniamin Golubitskiy and the company’s General Director Mikhail Semyonov. The corporation’s managers also spoke about the company’s recent

I-Fly flight RSY-9535 Yekaterinburg-Hurghada has been put off from 12:20 PM to 9:00 PM today because the airline’s return plane failed to arrive from Turkey on time. In addition, flight RSY-9536 Antalya-Yekaterinburg has also been delayed by over twenty-four hours; the latest arrival time was set at 4:00 PM on October 22, 2010, whereas according to the original schedule, its passengers were to have come back from Turkey as early as 3:45 AM on October 21, 2010. The company reports the take-off was postponed due to technical problems. I-Fly, a Russian carrier dealing in chartered flights,

‘All the tourists who have been inconvenienced by the flight delays were provided with meals and accommodation. The residents of Yekaterinburg went back to their homes, of course, while travelers from other towns were given rooms in hotels in the vicinity of Koltsovo Airport,’ the Sales Director of TEZ Tour Yekaterinburg office Larissa Larionova said to UrBC. Now I-Fly Airlines had two of its flights (RSY-9536 Antalya-Yekaterinburg and RSY-9539 Yekaterinburg-Sharm El Sheikh) delayed by more than twenty-four hours. The second flight in question has already taken off, while the plane from