'It’s going to be very difficult for Maxi Group to break into the weldless pipe market, as it is saturated at the moment and the competition is quite fierce,’ a representative of Trubmetallkomplekt Ltd said to a UrBC reporter. 'There are three large weldless pipe makers in Sverdlovsk Region alone (one of them being Sinara Pipe Works), and plenty of intermediaries on top of that. This is why what Maxi Group wants to do is set prices that are lower than the current market ones. Otherwise their potential consumers simply won’t buy their produce, given that the quality of these goods is

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Pervouralsk Joint Stock Commercial Bank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year went down 78.7% (from 33.743 million RUR to 7.182 million RUR) in January-July 2007.

The regional division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) inspected a number of hydraulic facilities at Malyshevskoye Rudoupravleniye, Nizhneserginskiy Hardware Plant, and VSMPO AVISMA Corporation on August 6-17, 2007. These inspections revealed 25 safety violations, Rostechnadzor’s local press officer reports. One problem is the absence of systematic control over the way the companies put away their effluents for safekeeping. The inspectors drew up two administrative offense reports, accusing certain authorities of failing to act

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Gubernskiy Bank to state-owned for-profit organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 29.1% (from 4.999 million RUR to 3.541 million RUR) in January-July 2007.

Ural Airlines operated its first restored scheduled flight from Yekaterinburg to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on August 18, 2007. The carrier’s press officer says, referring to Conde Nast Traveler, that Baku is ‘one of the twenty places one should see before they lose their historic looks‘. Experts predict putting up more new buildings downtown is bound to fully exterminate the city’s unique architectural ensemble in about a couple of decades. The flight is performed every Saturday using a TU 154 M aircraft, with the plane taking off from Yekaterinburg at 2 AM and arriving in Baku at 4

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Universal Bank Ltd to non-profit NGOs for 91 to 180 days went down by 57.1% (from 24.5 million RUR to 10.5 million RUR) in January-July 2007.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel signed a decree on his own vacation that is expected to last from August 20, 2007 to September 7, 2007. Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov is going to be acting Governor while Mr. Rossel is away.

UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics is now co-operating with Factiva, the global information system that is run by American Dow Jones. The agreement to this extent was signed on August 20, 2007. The online newswire produced by UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics (both the Russian and the English versions) are now going to be available to Factiva subscribers. Factiva is the world’s leading supplier of business news and information as well as the supplier of services needed to broadcast or otherwise spread these news. Factiva is available in 22

VSMPO AVISMA’s revenues went down by 5% and thus amounted to 14.127 billion RUR in January-June 2007 (compared with 14.918 billion RUR a year earlier), the company’s mid-year report states. Their gross profit dropped by .4 billion RUR and reached 5.9 billion RUR, their sales profit decreased by .547 billion RUR and thus came to 4.393 billion RUR. The corporation’s net profit decreased from 3.654 billion RUR in January-June 2006 to 2.688 billion RUR in January-July 2007.

RBC-Rating analysts did a research on Russia’s plastic card market in the first half of 2007, with data provided by 109 Russian banks. Five banks on the Top 25 card-issuing banks list are actually based in Sverdlovsk Region. SKB-Bank was rated 25th in the All-Russian ranking and 1st in the Mid-Urals one. The number of cards issued by the bank amounted to 350,640 by July 1, 2007. Central Bank of Russia reports 727 banks that deal in issuance and acquiring have been registered in Russia by July 2007; these figures cover 679 issuers and 646 acquirers. In the meantime, Moscow (including Moscow

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Plato Bank to sole traders for 1 to 3 years went down by 61.4% (from 1.66 million RUR to 640,000 RUR) in January-July 2007.

Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) declared it was going to inspect companies that sell American toys with excessive content of lead. The issue has been brought about by Mattel being reported to have some metal in a shipment consisting of Barbie dolls and Sergeant cars, which is why the toy-maker announced it was going to withdraw 436,000 toys (including the magnet ones) that had been produced between January 2002 and January 2007. Rospotrebnadzor says there are no data on whether any of these toys have been imported to Russia. 'We do sell Mattel toys, but we haven’t

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by VUZ Bank to sole traders despite overdraft account went down by 58.9% (from 4.589 million RUR to 1.886 million RUR) in January-July 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of profit-making self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Uralfinance Bank valid for 181 days to 1 year went down by 11.8% (from 8.5 million RUR to 7.5 million RUR) in January-July 2007.

A flight operated by Aviaprad was delayed once again; a plane coming to Yekaterinburg from Nyagan was supposed to have arrived in Yekaterinburg at 1.55 PM yet the interactive timetable used in Koltsovo airport read that Aviaprad’s flight would only land at 3.05 PM. On top of that, an Aviaprad’s plane arriving from Norilsk would only arrive in Yekaterinburg at 3.05 PM rather than the scheduled 2 PM on August 17, 2007.

Sverdlovsk Region Anti-Terrorist Committee members met in order to elaborate some extra measures that could enhance the anti-terrorist protection of railway transport. In the absence of the Governor the meeting was chaired by the head of the regional security services Boris Kozinenko. The spokesperson for the Governor reports the meeting was summoned after an act of terror performed at Oktyabrskiy Railways that caused derailing of a passenger train going from Moscow to Saint Petersburg on August 13, 2007. The meeting attendees said their most pressing problem at the moment was the stealing of

The Ural branch of URSA Bank launched the URSA Bank Money Order campaign, which means that any customer who uses the bank’s system to have at least 20,000 RUR, $700, or ?700 transferred for them between August 13, 2007 and October 31, 2007 can take part in a prize-winning lottery; the drawing is scheduled for November 2, 2007, and the prize is a communicator phone. ‘URSA Bank’s money orders are a quick and dynamic way of having your money reach the person who needs it most. Our customers use the service not only to help their nearest and dearest, pay their tuition fees, or make a loan

'The most wide-spread adulterated goods that are imported to Russia on the whole and the Urals in particular this year are vegetables, fruit, meat, and strong drinks. Most of these goods come from Central Asia. The customs officers from the Ural Customs Administration say they find faults with goods from China particularly frequently; this usually pertains to clothes, footwear, and toys. As regards Kazakhstan, problems are normally related to meat and fruit,’ Deputy Head of Ural Customs Administration Vadim Myasnikov announced at a press conference on August 17, 2007. 'Russia also

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UralTransBank to state-owned profit-making organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 35.3% (from 912,000 RUR to 590,000 RUR) in January-July 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to sole traders despite overdraft account went down by 100% (from 1.622 million RUR to zero) in January-July 2007.