A flight operated by Aviaprad was delayed once again; a plane coming to Yekaterinburg from Norilsk was supposed to have arrived in Yekaterinburg at 2 PM on October 26, 2007, yet the interactive timetable used in Koltsovo airport read that Aviaprad’s flight would be delayed by five hours. The air carrier refused to produce any comments.

The top executives of CZMT Invest AG (a Czech-German joint venture) and Rosinvestprom UTC signed an agreement regarding the construction of talc and cement plants in Sverdlovsk Region on October 25, 2007. The region’s government reports CZMT Invest AG intends to finance the creation of Ural Talc Complex; as for the cement works, the construction process is expected to cover several stages. The plant will only be producing a few standard kinds of cement at first, but these will be made on the basis of the newest technologies. This means some equipment with capacity of up to 1 million tons of

'We haven’t felt food prices have grown any more stable yet. We get the foods from our suppliers, who still use the growing prices, then we impose a 20% price increase and put the products on the shelves,’ Galina Dobroslavina, Director of Demetra Ltd (a grocery store), said to UrBC. 'The foods we are getting this week come at last week’s prices; there were no price drops of any sort,’ she added. In the meantime, the Russian Federation Ministry of Agriculture’s executives and members of Russian business community discussed the ways of making essential food prices stable last Tuesday.

The Russian market on the whole and Sverdlovsk Region’s market in particular are getting more and more familiar with the so-called distance sales, which is why the Russian Government adopted a special provision on distance sales regulations. The rules state that distance sales are a way of selling certain products through getting the end user acquainted with them with the help of catalogues, advertising leaflets, pictures, websites, etc. To protect the citizens’ life and health, the regional division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) insists that all customers pay close

SKB-Bank’s group of leasing companies got on top of Yekaterinburg’s Top Leasing Companies List in January-June 2007; the list was compiled by the Delovoy Kvartal magazine, the bank’s press officer reports. SKB-Leasing was rated Yekaterinburg’s No. 1 in terms of money given for the acquisition of new equipment: the volume of all transactions totaled to 330 million RUR. The company was also the city’s largest leasing company in terms of the total transaction cost (2.6 billion RUR per 412 transactions). Besides, SKB-Leasing was one of the three leading companies in terms of money given for the

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Uralprivatbank valid for 181 days to 1 year went down by 8.2% (from 112.55 million RUR to 103.3 million RUR) in January-September 2007.

'Moldavian winemakers are not going to win back their share of the Russian market. They haven’t come up with any supply offers yet, but we expect them to do this soon,’ Ural Spirits’ Purchasing Director Sergey Lapshin says. He believes Moldavian wines’ price, the competition coming from both foreign and domestic rivals, and no opportunity of getting back on store shelves are the three factors that cancel out any possibility of getting their share of the market back. 'As for Moldavian cognac, things are even more complicated because the demand was supposed to have been restored long

There were 143,600 unemployed people in Sverdlovsk Region in September 2007, which is 21% less than a year earlier, regional statisticians report. An average worker’s salary came to 13,752.6 RUR in August 2007, which is 25.8% better than in August 2006. The population’s expenses reached in 58.1 billion RUR in August 2007, which is 23.2% more than twelve months before.

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation held a series of deposit auctions, including those based on the Reuters Dealing system, MICEX e-trading system and buying bids on October 25, 2007; the money was deposited on October 26, 2007, the refund of the deposit and the payment of the interest are due November 23, 2007 (for deposits valid for four weeks) or January 25, 2008 (for deposits valid for three months). The auction was held in compliance with the Federal Law 86 on the Central Bank of Russian Federation as well as with the Bank of

'The rate of business development is very intense nowadays, so it would be wise of any entrepreneur to think of their future, since any one of them can go bust at any given point,’ Deputy Chairman of Consumer Services Committee Mikhail Usoltsev says. 'Nowadays companies tend to expand through gradual takeovers; if you take Yekaterinburg’s photography market, for instance, there are only two major players at the moment with retail outlets in all the parts of the city,’ notes Oleg Zemtsov, the spokesperson for Deputy Mayor. 'One should think carefully of where to set up a

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) has successfully undergone the re-certification audit procedure and proved its compliance with the international ISO 14001-2004 environmental management standard. The audit was conducted by TUV NORD CERT; it proved that MMK’s environmental management system is functioning properly, the company’s press officer reports. The company introduced its environmental management system and had it certified in 2004. Every year since, MMK has been undergoing additional audit to prove its compliance with the standard. The last certificate was valid through

The Bank of Russia reports Russian people had 3.447 trillion RUR worth of cash on their hands on October 1, 2007; this amounts to about 6 billion banknotes and more than 33.7 billion coins. 37% of all available banknotes are 1,000-ruble bills, and they get forged most often. Every one in five bills is a 500-ruble one, and this is Russia’s second most popular banknote at the moment. Then, the 5,000-ruble bills are also gaining popularity. The Central Bank of Russia says 120 million banknotes have been printed already. Russian mints mainly produce 1-kopeck and 5-kopeck coins; together, they

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) aims to raise its metal goods output up to 15 million tons a year by 2013, Chairman Viktor Rashnikov reports. The enterprise has already managed to increase its steel output by 1.86 times (from 6.7 million tons to 12.45 million tons) and to nearly double its metal goods production (from 5.8 million tons to 11.3 million tons) in 1996-2006. Last year, MMK’s steel output rose by 1 million tons and its rolled metal output grew by 1.15 million tons. Mr. Rashnikov says the company now aims to develop its further metal processing technologies and concentrate

The hot-rolling mill 2000 automatic control system is being restored at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). The spokesperson for the enterprise says upgrading the automatic control system is part of the complex modernization process of the hot rolling mill itself. The system is two-fold: the basic equipment responsible for immediate control of various mechanisms was made by Siemens, while the second-level numerical schemes were designed by AGIKA (Italy). The first-level equipment has been almost fully replaced by now; the schemes will have been upgraded by May 2008 - and all this

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in UralFinPromBank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 95.14% (from 5.14 million RUR to 250,000 RUR) in January-September 2007.

The Association of Russian Builders and the National Association of Mortgage Market Players held a meeting on October 22, 2007 in order to discuss the state of events at the international financial markets and the way the U.S. mortgage crisis could affect this country’s mortgage lending market. Reports were made by Vladimir Ponomarev and Nikolai Koshman, who had just come back from the States, and by Russian Mortgage Accepting Company’s Deputy General Director for Legal Issues Alexander Kazakov and Deputy General Director for Analytics Sergey Kaduk. 'In the West, the legal issues, things

Head of the Russian Federation Federal Customs Service Andrei Emelyanov suggested cancelling import duties imposed on primary commodities until the end of 2007. He believes this is going to expand the range of goods available as well as make prices go down, E-Craft reports. In the meantime, essential food prices keep growing. This growth mainly involved vegetable oil (13.5%), pasteurized milk (9.4%), dairy products (7.9%), and cottage cheese (7.4%-7.5%). The government is trying to handle the problem through freezing of prices and decreasing the import duties (these dropped from 15% to 5% on

The Russian government should try to stabilize the prices rather than freeze them, Vice Prime Minister and Russian Federation Minister of Finances Alexei Kudrin says. The Minister believes the government must try to fight the trend and prevent the 40% increases in food prices through negotiating with the business community. Mr. Kudrin says prices serve as an indicator for the food producers, who infer that the demand has increased and therefore they can produce more foods. ‘In this sense, prices are a natural and necessary part of the market. However, we do need to prevent the price peaks and

Ural Airlines’ developmental experts summed up the results of the airline’s online ticket sales. The e-booking office available at www.uralairlines.com started operating in February 2006. The site was made as user-friendly as possible, and the booking procedure is even demonstrated with the help of a video clip. Payments are made electronically as well using Visa Classic, Visa Gold, MasterCard/EuroCard, Diners Club, JCB, WebMoney, E-port, Credit Pilot, and very soon, Yandex Money; alternatively, a customer can always book online and pay for the ticket in any of the carrier’s booking offices.

Sverdlovsk Region’s retail trade turnover went up by 23% in September 2007 and reached 35 billion RUR. The regional statisticians report the catering companies’ turnover amounted to 1.9 billion RUR in September 2007, which is 21% better than a year earlier. The volume of paid services rose by 8% and came to 9.5 billion RUR. The catering companies’ turnover and the volume of paid services rendered to the population in January-September 2007 amounted to 140 billion RUR and 79 billion RUR respectively, while the region’s industrial production index rose by 20% against September 2006.