Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to natural persons for 91 to 180 days dropped by 97.8% (from 1.002 million RUR to 22,000 RUR) in January-December 2007.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) looked at the results of its activity in 2007. MMK was reported to produce 12.2 million tons of metal goods in 2007, thus exceeding the production output by 7.6% compared to 2006. This has been the company’s best-ever result so far. In 2007, the enterprise produced 9.482 million tons of cast iron (which falls short of the previous year’s figures by 2.6% due to the blast-furnace shop reconstruction) and 13.261 million tons of steel (which exceeds the figures for 2006 by 6.5% thanks to better use of the electric furnaces’ capacity). As a result, more

According to the rating of unit investment trusts as of January 16, 2008, the profitability of Renaissance - Active Management Fund went down by 4.89% between January 15, 2008 and January 16, 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by VUZ Bank to sole traders despite overdraft dropped by 69.56% (from 4.589 million RUR to 1.397 million RUR) in January-December 2007.

The bank’s official website informs the customers that Severnaya Kazna is not going to handle any outward dollar payments on January 21, 2008. All the dollar payments and stock trading operations will be performed on Tuesday, January 22, 2008, though.

The value of net assets of Energy - Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by .72% between January 10, 2008 and January 11, 2008. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 3,482,806.42 RUR on January 10, 2008 to 3,457,845.86 RUR on January 11, 2008.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development received a subordinated loan worth $50m for the term of ten years on December 21, 2007. The loan was offered to the bank by ABN AMRO BANK N.V. until December 2017. This is the first time the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development has obtained a loan from a foreign contractor. It appears that the deal went through thanks to the impressive estimates given to the bank by the world’s leading rating agencies. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s long term rating was confirmed at B- by Standard and Poor’s (with Rating Outlook seen

According to the rating of unit investment trusts as of January 15, 2008, the profitability of LUKoil Conservative Fund went down by .02% between January 14, 2008 and January 15, 2008.

According to the rating of unit investment trusts as of January 15, 2008, the profitability of Raiffeisen Electroenergy went down by .52% between January 1, 2008 and January 15, 2008.

The spokesperson for Evraz Group reports that Titan Acquisition Sub, their daughter enterprise, has successfully acquired a shareholding of Claymont Steel Holding on January 16, 2008. It has been reported that Claymont Steel’s shareholders offered 16,415,722 ordinary shares for sale, which comes to approximately 93.4% of currently circulating shares, and Evraz Group bought them all. This is going to become a part of a merger. Each of Claymont Steel’s shares that has not been sold during the time of the offer (excluding those that already belong to either Evraz Group or Claymont Steel or their

Kommersant, a prominent Russian publishing house, came up with its First Rating on Russia’s Top 200 largest banks. Most of the banks that made it into the first hundred are based in Moscow, while only two banks located in Tyumen Region and three banks located in Sverdlovsk Region actually represent the Urals. Yekaterinburg-based SKB-Bank was given the 88th position in terms of its equity capital (the figure exceeded 3 billion RUR on October 1, 2007). As a matter of fact, SKB-Bank was promoted to its current rating from the 69th position it was given in 2006.

The volume of Uralfinprombank’s net profit decreased by 6,660,000 RUR, or 18.11%, in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared to the previous quarter, their report says. The net profit dropped from 36,784,000 RUR in July-September 2007 to 30,124,000 RUR in October-December 2007. The bank explains this by the increased managerial expenses.

During his visit to Ural Federal District, First Deputy Head of Government Dmitry Medvedev chaired a meeting on Chelyabinsk Region’s environmental problems in South Ural State University. The meeting was attended by BOD Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov, who made a report on the local companies’ conservation activity. According to Mr. Rashnikov, Chelyabinsk Region has always been an industrial area whose enterprises affect the environment badly enough. To amend the matters, the enterprises have elaborated and are now using some special environmental

'It’s a bit early yet to speak of a serious downfall in the global economy, at least because even the world’s leading economists and central banks aren’t able to come up with any adequate statements yet,’ Unicom Partner Investment Company’s Asset Management Director Sergei Kaliberda said to UrBC, relating to the recent lowest-ever decrease in Russian stock markets’ indices (MICEX index lost 4.29% and RTS index dropped by 4.41%). 'I believe, however, that a certain slowing down of global economic growth is to be expected, and the current situation is grave enough. The root of the

'The growth of housing prices in Russia is a great problem. Dwellings became 22% more expensive over just nine months of 2007. As for the Urals, housing prices rose by 20% in terms of new homes, while existing home prices are even higher. At the same time, it became 21.5% more costly to put up one square meter of dwelling in January-September 2007, which is a problem, too,’ First Deputy Head of Government Dmitry Medvedev said in the course of a meeting on the top priority national project known as Affordable and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens in Tyumen.

Chairman of SKB-Bank Mikhail Khodorovskiy took part in the interdepartmental meeting chaired by First Deputy Head of Government Dmitry Medvedev. The agenda of the meeting (held in Tyumen) covered issues related to the top priority national project known as Affordable and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens and its implementation in Ural Federal District. The meeting was attended by Governors of all the regions within the district and by mayors of all the major cities. SKB-Bank acted as the representative of Sverdlovsk Region’s banking community that does its share of work through mortgage

In 2007, Ural Turbine Plant’s maintenance team signed over twenty contracts related to maintenance of the Ural turbines that are now being used abroad. The contract parties are mainly based in Kazakhstan, Byelorussia, Romania, Austria, and Bulgaria. 'We built up on our market position in Byelorussia and Kazakhstan last year and managed to more than quadruple the volume of our export contracts. In addition, we are thinking of entering Azerbaijan’s market and we’ll keep doing businesses with the heat power plants located on the premises of large industrial enterprises as well as keep on

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Perviy Respublikanskiy Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations despite overdraft went down by 22.91% (from 54.793 million RUR to 42.239 million RUR) in January-December 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year plummeted by 90.8% (from 15 million RUR to 1.38 million RUR) in January-December 2007.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UniCreditBank to state-run for-profit organizations for 181 days to 1 year dropped by 30.32% (from 172.251 million RUR to 120.016 million RUR) in January-December 2007.