Eight new business centers, totaling 285,600 sq m in area, will be introduced in Yekaterinburg this year. Four of them are going to be Class A centers with the total area of 221,600 sq m and two Class B centers with the total area of 64,000 sq m, the city council’s press service reports. In the meantime, only one business center, Voznesensky, was launched in Yekaterinburg last year, despite much more optimistic expectations. . The centers that will probably get commissioned in the second and third quarters of 2011 are Vysotsky at 8 Krasnoarmeyskaya St, AVS at 99 Mamin-Sibiryak St, Carneol at

A delegation of officials from Sverdlovsk Region headed by Governor Alexander Misharin visited a number of Zurich-based enterprises in the course of its official stay in Switzerland. For one, the Governor met the management of Schindler, one of the leading manufacturers of economy class elevators. Alexander Misharin suggested that the company should consider setting up a joint venture in Sverdlovsk Region with RENOVA StroyGroup as a potential partner. The latter is now implementing Russia’s largest developing project Academic. The elevators will enjoy great demand within the Mid-Urals’ public

MWC2011, the international mobile communication congress in Barcelona, saw the agreement-signing process between the Russian telecommunications provider MegaFon and the international telecommunications alliance FreeMove. The alliance comprises Europe’s four major operators: Deutsche Telekom Group, Orange, TeliaSonera, and TIM (Telecom Italia Group). Joining the alliance means MegaFon turns into a more appealing partner for international companies that operate on the Russian market. First of all, the operator’s customers will be able to enjoy the special payment rates on the calls made within

Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) placed an application with International Commercial Arbitrations Court under Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, asking to halt the claim laid by NLMK against founder of Maxi Group Nikolai Maksimov. The plaintiff initially wanted the defendant to pay off 5.9bn RUR worth of debt. The plaintiff reports the decision was taken because new hearings were scheduled at Moscow Arbitration Court for February 19, 2011: NLMK now insists that Maxi Group be declared bankrupt. Now the sticking point of the whole case was Maxi Group’s share price. NLMK bough

Moscow Arbitration Court did not find any evidence of bankruptcy in the documents provided by Capital Tour and therefore made the company provide some more convincing proof. The hearing has been put off until March 9, 2011, Russian Agency for Legal & Court Information reports. Now the debtor claims its debts run up to 1.59bn RUR, including 552.1m RUR worth of the bulk sum and 1.5bn RUR worth of accounts receivable. A Capital Tour representative announced the company’s assets were insufficient to pay all the creditors back, which was why they applied for bankruptcy.