A work meeting of two strategic partners, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ), was held in Yekaterinburg. The meeting was attended by MMK Director-General Boris Dubrovsky and ChTPZ DG Yaroslav Zhdan as well as by experts from the production, commercial, and logistics departments of both companies. The parties agreed on the basic commercial terms of their cooperation. The attendees discussed the prospects of the two companies joining the pipeline development projects in Russia and the CIS in 2012-2013, agreed on the important commercial terms

All of Yekaterinburg’s hotels will have to undergo a certification procedure in the next few years; as a result, the hotels will be assigned this or that number of stars. According to Yekaterinburg Council, only 40 out of the 99 hotels that have been operating in Yekaterinburg since 2005 (over the last seven years, that is) have undergone a category-assigning procedure so far. Two hotels are now ranked as five-star ones, twelve – as four-star ones, and seventeen – as three-star ones. All the other hotels will have to get certified by 2018, when a world football championship will be held in

UC RUSAL’s major enterprises increased the amount of aluminum shipped via Russian Railways by 5.3% in January-May 2012 compared with a year earlier; the figure came to 1.058m tons, Russian Railways reports. According to the available data, UC RUSAL’s Bogoslovsky smelter shipped 24,700 tons of goods in January-May 2012 (compared with 32,000 tons in January-May 2011).

Upon Gazprom Transgaz Yekaterinburg’s demand, the assets of Ural-Avstro-Invest have been seized. This decision was taken by Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court. Ural-Avstro-Invest is considered to be the company that owns the International Trade Center, including Atrium Palace Hotel. Gazprom Transgaz Yekaterinburg went to court asking to make Ural-Avstro-Invest pay 56.79m RUR it owed the company under a simple partnership agreement signed in 1998. Alongside the claim, the plaintiff also submitted a petition asking to secure the claim through the seizure of the defendant’s funds located in one

Ural Airlines came up with a performance report for May 2012. The company flew 298,993 passengers last month, which was 40% better than in 2011. All in all, 1.13m passengers have used the company’s services since the beginning of the year. For the first time in this company’s history, the air carrier’s millionth passenger of the year was serviced as early as spring, the airline’s press service reports. In May 2012, Ural Airlines operated 2,335 flights (a 33% increase on May 2011), including 1,049 international flights, 800 domestic flights, and 486 flights around the CIS. The actual passenger

1.31m passengers were serviced at Koltsovo Airport’s international terminal in the five months of 2012, which is 20.4% more than a year earlier. The international passenger turnover rose by 29% on the previous year. Paphos, Punta Cana, Samarkand, Simferopol, Tbilisi, U-Tapao, Harbin, Ho Chi Minh, and Shardzha were among the new destinations launched in the five months of 2012. All in all, Koltsovo Airport processed flights to 91 destinations in January-May 2012. ‘Over this period, the most popular destinations were Salekhard, Osh, Bishkek, Myneralnye Vody, Hurghada, Sanya, Larnaka, Rodos, and