New commercial estate projects are now implemented in a better way, reports Ural Chamber of Real Estate: developers split a trade center in little areas and sell them as early as at the construction stage only in 6 out of 33 cases now and prefer to sell large places (at least 2,000-square-meter ones) to professional investors who will then act as the anchor tenants of the mall. The market, however, is still experiencing some problems with the trade area shortage: most malls are used to the fullest, despite the fact that the average rent comes to 1,868 RUR per square meter a month.

‘SKB-Bank was rated 14th in Top 30 Most Attractively Presented Russian Banks rating compiled by Medialogia, a mass media analysis and monitoring system; the rating covers thirty Russian banks that got the best publicity between April 1 and April 15, 2007. Sberbank, VTB, and Gazprombank (three major players on the Russian banking market) occupy the top three positions; SKB-Bank, ranked 14th out of 30, is definitely the leading bank in Ural Federal District,’ says the bank’s press officer. Medialogia used the so-called most favored informational status as the basic rating criterion that helps

Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank reduced its share of Yekaterinburg market when one of the bank’s offices situated at 29 Malyshev St. closed down on April 13, 2007. The bank’s press officer reports that even though the office was conveniently based in the downtown area, it was not really popular, so the bank just had to redistribute the functions of this office among subsidiaries located elsewhere. Thus the company openly admits that this office, set up as recently as September 2005, had very little efficiency and client appeal. The press officer does not say anything as to whether any of the

Last year, Russian Copper Company acquired licenses allowing it to handle Levikhinskoye and Novo-Shaitanskoye deposits, says the spokesperson for the company. These deposits are now subjected to exploration work; in the future, an ore mining and processing enterprise with the annual output of 500,000 tons of copper-zinc ore and 15,000 tons of copper concentrate will be put up there; this is going to cost $80 million. Levikhinskiy mine is expected to be launched in 2009, Novo-Shaitanskiy mine one year later. Russian Copper Company also bought a license entitling it to developing Degtyarskoye

Ural Customs Administration filed 115 administrative suits regarding illegal currency transactions, inaccurate declaration of currency, or failing to declare it altogether and 1 criminal suit regarding a case of smuggling in January-March 2007. The total value of illegally handled currency comes to more than $812,000. Last year, Ural customs officers revealed about 400 instances of currency offenses in the course of checking people traveling abroad, which resulted in 391 administrative suits regarding illegal currency transactions (36 cases) inaccurate declaration of currency or failing to

First Deputy Head of Russian Federation Government Sergey Ivanov arrived in Yekaterinburg on April 18, 2007. He was welcomed at Koltsovo airport by Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Petr Latyshev and Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. According to official press releases, Mr. Ivanov is going to chair a meeting of the Commission on Problems of the Defense-Industrial Complex under the Russian Federation Government; the meeting is mainly targeted at finding the ways of implementing the achievements of Russian defense industry in the

On April 18, 2007, the Russian market of shares responded to the reduced American stock market indices and the drop in oil prices (now sold at $63.1 per barrel after the U.S. decided to produce more petrol to meet the current demand) by a decrease in all the blue chip prices. The market was slightly over 1,990 after the first two hours of business. In the afternoon, it kept going down due to intense activity in the Russian ADR sales sector and the still decreasing oil prices, reached the minimum of 1,967.32 points at the close of business and remained at a little less than 1,970 afterwards.

‘A developer’s success depends on a whole range of factors, including the performance of the broker, the management company, and the investment system,’ Boris Terentiev of Olips announced at a press conference devoted to investments in, building of, and running office realty. Mr. Terentiev believes companies are often on a limited budget when they are designing and implementing construction projects. In such cases companies that only use the finances of the proprietors and the founders do not make the best decisions because they actually ignore the opportunities a developed market has to

According to Ural Airlines’ spokesperson, the carrier’s passenger turnover amounted to 436,880 passenger-kilometers in the first quarter of 2007, which exceeds the figures for 2006 by 19%. The company’s airplanes performed 2,049 flights and transferred 198,970 passengers, which is 30% better than a year earlier. Things looked quite impressive in March when there was a dramatic 70% rise in the traffic flow and a 9% increase in the passenger turnover on international chartered flights against March 2006. Both the passenger load factor and the commercial load figures reached some rather

Bank24.ru came up with a special summer offer for its customers: anyone who uses their Universal loan scheme between April 16 and July 1, 2007 will be presented with a two-year Visa Instant Issue card, with no fee charged for the year-long management of the account and no entry fee. This offer is particularly appealing to those willing get the Universal loan in order to go on holiday in the summer, since Visa is an indispensable thing for travelers. Visa Instant Issue is basically modeled upon Visa Electron and can be used to pay for goods and services all over the world. The unique thing is,

'Russia’s regional office markets develop in a way that resembles that of Europe and Moscow a while ago, so I don’t think the emergence of any new trends is very likely,’ Alexander Kurochkin of Saint-Petersburg-based Management Companies and Commercial and Industrial Property Developers Guild announced at a recent press conference. 'My feeling is that the players need to interact very actively in order to understand the best way to move forward. One of the major issues, for example, is deciding on how to classify the office types. Some large Russian companies agreed upon a certain

Head of the Ural division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental and technological safety watchdog) Andrei Korolev suddenly passed away on April 18, 2007, reports Rostechnadzor’s press officer. Andrei N. Korolev was born on June 10, 1958 in Yekaterinburg. He graduated from Ural State Technical University (Department of Physics) in 1981 and was involved in political activity in 1981-1986; then he moved on to become employed at Ural Mechanic-Electrical Plant in 1986-1988 and was promoted to the director of a potassium producing company in 1998-1991. He went back to politics in 1992 and

‘We hope all the Russian travel agents manage to undergo the obligatory inspection by Rostourism and make it to the United Federal Register before June 1, 2007; as for our company, we only do business with reliable agents who are already getting all the papers ready,’ reports Olga Gulyar of Zima-Leto Travel Agency. 'We are both an agent and an operator, so we are currently drawing up all the documents as well. In case some company fails to be inspected prior to the deadline, I think the authorities could try to extend it until later, since the procedure itself is not very clear to

‘Noviy Grad’s deceived housing investors are going to support the All-Russian hunger-strike aimed at attracting attention to this problem,’ reports Chairman of Right to a Dwelling Vasiliy Ganzhin. 'Members of our NGO will picket the streets in the morning of April 21, 2007 with slogans like ‘Give us our dwellings!’ and ‘Noviy Grad is a dishonest builder,’ Mr. Ganzhin adds. 'I do hope all our authorities will finally begin handling the issue of deceived housing investors seriously as such protest marches are going to take place in many Russian cities at a time.’

The Academic construction project manager Stanislav Pridvizhkin met some executives of the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry in Yekaterinburg to discuss the construction project in question. This meeting was coordinated by the Ministry for Foreign and External Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region. According to Mr. Pridvizhkin, the Finnish climate is similar to that of the Urals; this is why local developers are quite interested in what Finnish architects have to offer in terms of combining unique exteriors with technological securities of buildings meant for cold climates. RENOVA

Alexander Kazantsev was appointed Commercial Director of MegaFon Ural on April 18, 2007. Mr. Kazantsev was originally employed in the capacity of the Marketing Manager of the company’s Surgut-based division in 2003 and promoted to Commercial Director in November 2006. He had worked as MegaFon Tyumen’s Regional Director prior to his new appointment.

Head of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental and technological safety watchdog) Konstantin Pulikovskiy believes obsolete equipment in all branches of industry is the greatest man-caused threat facing Russia at the moment. Equipment owners are generally trying to prolong its life beyond reasonable limits, which results in accidents and human casualties, reports Rostechnadzor’s press officer in Ural Federal District. 'How does one find the golden mean that allows one to both make a profit and comply with the safety regulations? This golden mean lies in the presence of the state

United Company RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminum and alumina producer, looked at its achievements in the first quarter of 2007, shortly after RUSAL, SUAL, and Glencore merged their assets to form a new company. The company’s aluminum output rose by 2.5% compared to a year earlier and amounted to 999,415 tons. The alumina production has remained the same (2,740,168 tons), whereas the bauxite production went down 8.6% and came to 4,127,607 tons (this was due to a temporary halt in bauxite production in Guinea and Sredne-Timanskiy deposit based in Komi, Russia). 'By merging into United

A new rolled wire shop (to be controlled by American Southwire Company) is being put up at Kyshtym Copper-Electrolysis Plant (part of Russian Copper Company); the productivity of the shop is estimated to reach 100,000 tons of wire annually, reports the spokesperson for Russian Copper Company. The shop is expected to be launched in the middle of 2007, which will raise the works’ total rolled wire output to 110,000 tons a year. The project will require $25.6 million worth of investments.

Ural Airlines (one of the Urals’ largest community-oriented businesses) once again comes up with offers for the war veterans around the Victory Day, reports the carrier’s press officer. This year, the Great Patriotic War veterans and people accompanying them can get an economy class ticket for any domestic flight for free (no fuel fee is charged either). Ural Airlines strategic program that covers these free tickets is targeted at developing flexible tariff policies for the most vulnerable social strata. The program aims to make air travel affordable for passengers who can normally only