‘There is no doubt that this hypermarket is going to be popular with customers, especially at the beginning. Yet whether they will come back afterwards remains to be seen, given in particular the store’s whereabouts. Auchan isn’t located downtown, so it’s questionable whether the residents of Yekaterinburg will be visiting the place on regular basis,’ said Chairman of Alliance Independent Partnership Alexei Podolyako.

The amount of criminal lawsuits involving copyright violation has increased by fourfold this year (compared to 2005). Thus, the figure soared from 19 cases in the first half of 2005 to 80 cases in the first half of 2006. Following the applications from representatives of Microsoft, AutoDesk, and Adobe that claimed that some production and design offices might be using illegal copies of their copyrighted software, the public prosecution authorities of Sverdlovsk Region carried out a number of inquiries. These inquiries revealed that the offense did take place. The computers of one production

As the spokesperson for the Court of Noviy Urengoi said to UrBC representative, the court proceedings concerning the arrears of wages at SevTyumenTransPut would be resumed at 10 AM today. The case of Chairman of EuroGreen and former CEO of SevTyumenTransPut Ilya Gaffner, who is charged with failing to pay 47m RUR worth of wages to employees of SevTyumenTransPut, began yesterday. The public prosecution authorities that have been dealing with the inquiry believe that Mr Gaffner transmitted the money into the accounts of a number of Yekaterinburg firms. Should he be proved guilty, Mr Gaffner may

According to the spokesperson for the airport Yulia Fedotova, three Yekaterinburg-Moscow flights were delayed yesterday due to a bomb alarm. Ms Fedotova explained that the special service agents completed searching at 7 PM yesterday; the bomb wasn’t found, so the delayed planes eventually took off.

TGK-9, the local generating company, will start supplying heat to consumers after the municipal councils sign decrees on the beginning of the heating season, reports the company’s spokesperson. These documents are expected to be signed on September 15, and the first buildings to receive heat will be hospitals, schools, kindergartens and day care centers. In the meantime, the company’s experts say that the regional consumers owe the company 562m RUR, with Yekaterinburg’s largest communal facilities operators owing 227m RUR for the heat they’ve received. The bad debtors list includes operators

The court session concerning the claim laid by Starwood Trading Ltd. of the UK against Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust took place in Chelyabinsk Region Court of Arbitration on September 12, 2006. ‘The judge decided to involve the third party yesterday; this is the director of the Bahamas offshore zone; the works was using him to conduct most of its transactions. The assistant to the judge is now trying to get in touch with this person who is allegedly in Chelyabinsk at the moment,’ said the spokesperson for Sovetnik Ltd., the legal representative of the British company. Starwood Trading Ltd.

For two weeks, Stankomash, an industrial enterprise located in Chelyabinsk Region, has only been getting emergency power supply as its debt to ChelyabEnergoSbyt, the supplier, came to 7.8m RUR on September 1, 2006. The negotiations between the tow companies resulted in a compromise, the spokesperson for ChelyabEnergoSbyt said to UrBC representative. The management of Stankomash guaranteed the payment of debts by giving the supplier a schedule of payments and a promise made by the director of the works in person. ChelyabEnergoSbyt decided to start supplying the company with electricity in

Ural Turbine Works (part of Renova Group) is going to make the first K-63-90 condensing turbine next year. The turbine is meant solely for electricity generating and will be installed at the power station of Sokolovskiy-Sarbaiskiy ore mining and processing enterprise in Rudnniy, Kazakhstan. The corresponding contract is to be signed at the end of September. Lonas Technology of Saint Petersburg and UralEnergoRemont became the developer and the general contractor of the project, respectively. ‘Ural experts used to deal in cogeneration turbines only, but now the market demands more flexibility,

According to the Minister for International and Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region Viktor Koksharov, the residents of Sverdlovsk Region will be able to obtain Schengen visas in the German consulate located in Yekaterinburg starting this December. Mr Koksharov said that the consulate was currently waiting for the visa-issuing equipment to arrive from Germany. Russian citizens from the other regions will only be able to get visas after the consulate, situated in Atrium Palace Hotel at the moment, moves to its new building.

Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank keeps improving mortgage lending terms; one of the improvements has been signified by the introduction of a new mortgage program called My House 2. This program allows a client with 30% of the cost of their would-be dwelling and with the preliminary purchase and sale agreement to get a mortgage of up to 15m RUR for a term of up to 15 years that they can use to have a cottage of their choice constructed for them. Collaterals or sponsorships are not required. The bank has also introduced a differentiated interest rate for the program called My House, and it now

The NIS and Russia’s leading refractory goods manufacturer, Magnesite Group has recently started developing Goluboye field in Krasnoyarsk Region (the village of Razdolinsk). The mining operations began in late August, with industrial extraction and shipments scheduled for the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007. The explored reserves of Goluboye deposit come to 15.5m tons, yet the amount may turn out to be larger after additional exploration work is done. The estimated throughput of the pit is 200,000 tons of raw magnesite a year. According to the Group experts, this output will have been

The retail electric power market, previously operating on the basis of general legislative acts (the Power Industry Act and some others), now has a special set of norms called Retail Market Regulations, the spokesperson for ChelyabEnergoSbyt, the regional supplier, said to UrBC representative. The main thing about these Regulations is setting up the institute of guaranteeing suppliers. The guaranteeing supplier status is obtained by the company that has no right to refuse any client wishing to use their electricity supplying services. Thus the state ensures reliable energy supply and gives

UralNefteProduct, the regional subsidiary of LUKOIL, has recently announced that it is going to raise the retail oil prices on September 12, 2006. As the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative, AI-76 petrol is now .5 RUR more expensive and costs 15.5 rather than 15 RUR per liter, AI-92 is sold at 18.8 instead of at 17.8 RUR, AI-95 and AI-98 are now both 1 RUR more expensive (20.3 and 20.5 RUR, respectively). Diesel fuel seems to have remained almost unaffected: the price per liter only went up by .1 RUR and reached the point of 17.6 RUR. The price of a ton of diesel fuel has been

UralSvyazInfrom, the local phone operator, is going to unsubscribe its landline users with debts on September 12, 2006, which covers the total of 35,020 subscribers as of September 1, 2006. The procedure is expected to be phased out and will last until September 21. Some 2,000 users will be unsubscribed daily. In order to avoid this, the clients of the company must pay the last bill before September 11. The Federal law on telecommunication and the terms of the company’s service agreements state that the subscribers shall pay their bills in due time, with the deadline indicated on the monthly

‘1,250,000 square meters of dwellings will be built in 2006, with the volume of mortgage loans to natural persons coming to 3,7bn RUR this year and 5.3bn RUR in 2007,’ First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government for Economic Policy and Prospective Development Galina Kovaleva announced at the 4th international banking forum called Russian Banks in the 21st century. ‘In order to support builders who operate in rural areas and for civil servants as well as young professionals, we have allotted 182.1m RUR from the regional budget. Young families will also be given subsidies (the total of

SibAcademBank JSC assessed the results of its activity in August. The bank has made 966m RUR of net profit since the beginning of the year, which exceeds the figures for eight months of 2005 by three times. Its net wealth rose by 7% and reached the point of 52,145m RUR on September 1, 2006; this figure increased by 2.8 times compared to a year earlier. The bank’s balance sheet total amounted to 69,562m RUR on September 1, 2006, which is 3.15 times better than last September. The bank’s equity capital comprised 7.816m RUR, which exceeds the figures for last September by 3.9 times, reports the

Utair Airlines assessed the results of their activity in the eight months of 2006. Within this period, the company has serviced 1,609,288 passengers and handled 701.1 tons of airmail and 5,734 tons of freight. The company flew the 71,575 flight hours, reports the spokesperson for Utair.

Sverdlovsk Region keeps building up its share of export in the regional economic activity; the share of exported goods has gone up by 15.2% and amounted to $3,409m worth of produce in the first half of 2006; the share of imported goods reached the point of $812.3m worth of produce, reports the spokesperson for the Governor.

Following the decision made by the shareholders at the general meeting (and in accordance with the agreement obtained from the General Administration of the Bank of Russia in Sverdlovsk Region), former Chairman of the Board of Directors Sergey Lapshin was elected Chairman of the Management Board of Bank24.ru. He will start performing in this capacity on September 11, 2006. The former Chairman is going to join the Board of Directors.

Kyshtym Copper Electrolysis Plant CJSC (part of Russian Copper Company CJSC) is putting up a shop meant for production of rolled wire with the estimated capacity of 90,000 tons of copper wire rods a year. The shop should be launched in the middle of 2007. According to the spokesperson for Russian Copper Company, its total throughput in terms of rolled wire production is expected to rise to 200,000 tons annually, which means that the company will increase its throughput by twenty times (from 10,000 tons to 200,000 tons a year) within four years (2003-2007).