Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to natural persons for up to 30 days went down by 100% (from 38.85 million RUR to zero) in January 2008.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) BOD held a meeting on March 21, 2008; the meeting resulted in the decision to suggest that the enterprise’s shareholders distribute their losses and profits in the course of the AGM and declare the registered ordinary share dividends (.502 RUR per share). In addition, the BOD set up a twenty-three member Supervisory Board and came up with the list of data the shareholders must be provided with prior to the annual general meeting. Besides, the directors approved of the reports on the implementation of their decisions and sub-committees’ performance as

The Ministry for International and Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region published some data on the region’s socioeconomic development in January-February 2008. The region’s foreign trade turnover reached $837.3m in January 2008, which is 27.3% better than a year earlier. These figures include $624.3m worth of exported goods (which exceeds the figures for January 2007 by 17.4%) and $213m worth of imported goods (which is 68.6% more than last January).

‘At the moment, Tyumenenergobank’s top executives are still considering the acquisition of Eurogreen Investment Company’s 50% shareholding,’ Tyumenenergobank’s press officer Ainur Vaitovitch said to UrBC. According to the media reports, Eurogreen’s management is currently negotiating with the Russian banks, hoping to sell half of the company’s stock. Tyumenenergobank is reported to be one of the prospective buyers. ‘The bank is trying to look into Eurogreen’s proposal and take the existing market opportunities into account. The final decision will probably be made in early April,’ Ms

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Sverdovsk Gubernskiy Bank to non-profit NGOs for 181 days to 1 year went down by 33.33% (from 12 million RUR to 8 million RUR) in January-February 2008.

SKB-Bank keeps expanding its subsidiary network in Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region by introducing more and more offices. The newest one is now located in Nyagan and can be found at 15 Lenin St. The bank’s new office can offer customers a full range of banking services like deposits for legal entities and private individuals, keeping, administration, and settlement of their accounts, and cash services. In addition, the office will be handling money orders, too. The outlet is to be run by the bank’s Regional Development Director Vyacheslav Bartkov. ‘The introduction of a new office is one

‘We’ve never had any problems with the Ural Customs Administration in general or with Koltsovo airport’s customs in particular, as we are not doing business with them directly but use intermediary suppliers instead,’ Mikhail Kovalev, the chef working at Troekurov (Resta Management) said to UrBC. In the meantime, Yekaterinburg’s restaurateurs were reported by some media to have consulted the city’s Vice Mayor Viktor Konteev, whose press officer was allegedly complaining about the long hours it took to do customs clearing of fresh seafood in Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg (despite the

Ural Airlines is going to start operating its new Yekaterinburg-Alma-Ata-Yekaterinburg flight on May 13, 2008. The decision was taken after Sverdlovsk Region’s dwellers’ numerous requests, as people needed some direct connection between Russia and Kazakhstan badly, the spokesperson for the airline says. Even though Russia and Kazakhstan have been cultural and business partners for years, the only way to get to Kazakhstan to Yekaterinburg was, until very recently, through several connecting flights from Moscow, or by train. This year, after Ural Airlines expanded its air fleet, the flights to

Uralmashxavod is currently manufacturing some equipment for BN-800 reactor that will be installed in Beloyarskaya power station’s fourth block. This is going to be the world’s most powerful fast reactor, the spokesperson for Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation reports. Uralmashzavod is Russia’s only enterprise capable of making the parts for this BN-800 nuclear reactor’s cover. All the reactor units are expected to be delivered to the power station in December 2008, so the machinery has to be shipped from Uralmashzavod no later than April 12, 2008. The plant’s produce will be delivered by

United Company RUSAL’s engineering and construction division won the National Engineering and Project Management Prize known as EPCM Award 2007. The prize was given to the company in recognition of its achievements in the field of large investment projects implementation. The awarding ceremony was part of a special conference on investment project management, UC RUSAL’s spokesperson said to UrBC. RUSAL’s engineering and construction division was set up in 2005 to implement some construction and upgrading projects. Putting up an aluminum plant in Khakasia was one of the division’s first

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UniCreditBank to sole traders for 91 to 180 days went down by 19.98% (from 128.385 million RUR to 102.739 million RUR) in January-February 2008.

The experts of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights and safety watchdog) inspected a number of retail toy sellers, their press officer reports. Three toys were randomly chosen for hygiene lab testing, and the results of this testing revealed that the styrol content in a tumbler toy (item number 6360) exceeded the limits imposed by the sanitary and epidemiological watchdogs; the limit was set at .002 milligrams per cubic meter, while the styrol content in the above-mentioned toy came to .006-.002 milligrams per cubic meter. These tumbler toys were made in

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of March 18, 2008, the share price of BCS Oil Fund (BrokerCreditService Management Company) has gone down by 11.78% since the beginning of 2008.

Ural Airlines improved on its ticket delivery service by starting to deliver them daily, from 9 AM to 11 PM. If you book between 9 AM and 6 PM, your tickets will be delivered on the same day; if you book later than 6 PM, you can get the ticket the next day or any other day you like, the carrier’s press officer reports. The cost of the delivery comes to 150 RUR, regardless of how many tickets you book and what flights these tickets are for. You can pay either in cash or by credit card. Tickets can be booked at delivery can be ordered at and more information about the service is available at

Ural Treasures Bank decreased the interest rate and the incidental commission on its Express Cash loan scheme. These will be lowered by 1% on March 20-31, 2008. Besides, one won’t need any income statement, however much one would like to borrow from the bank. The other terms of credit are to remain the same.

‘We’ve come up with a new advertising framework this year, so we are going to use some new characters in our ads now,’ says SKB-Bank’s Chairman Vladimir Pukhov. ‘We are through with the old ladies we used to have in our commercials, however sad it makes us feel. The bank’s new ad strategy will rely on the Soviet-style posters,’ he notes. ‘This new campaign’s logic is quite simple: not all things were bad during the Soviet times, there were some positive moments, too, and there are plenty of people who have some sort of nostalgia for those days. Besides, some seemingly bygone elements of the

Sberbank of Russia re-introduced a freshly redecorated office in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region. The office is located at 21 Voroshilov St. Customers (mostly private individuals rather than businesses) coming to this outlet can take advantage of the whole range of quality banking services, including various loans, deposit operations, exchange of currency, operations with bank cards, money orders, payment of housing bills, and much else besides. Deputy CEO of Sberbank’s Magnitogorsk branch Yuri Emelyanov announced in the course of the solemn opening ceremony that expanding the bank’s

MOTIV, the telecommunications group, is about to launch one of its newest services known as Private Virtual Network – a sort of intranet that will provide geographically extended companies with some reliable and safe communication, MOTIV’s press officer reports. Virtual Private Network is based on the Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology that is most efficient in terms of traffic transfer compared with its existing counterparts. VPN can be flexible and multifunctional, as customers can choose among the many options of IP traffic transfer with differing service classes. The network

‘The major problem today’s economic security market is faced with is habitual stereotypes. A business normally has some economic security services to protect it. A company is used to these services, but is incapable of evaluating the quality of the job they do: the larger a business is, the more intricate the job is. To assess the services’ performance, one has to have a lot of expertise in the field,’ Oleg Borisov, the General Director of Europe-Asia, the information and consulting center, said to UrBC. ‘On the other hand, this expertise is not something that universal auditors may

United Company RUSAL bought a cathode plant in the People’s Republic of China, the company’s press officer said to UrBC. The plant’s capacity comes to 9,300 tons of cathode stacks a year at the moment, but RUSAL is hoping to raise the cathode output to 20,900 tons by 2010. This project will require more than $20m in terms of investments. The plant is situated within 600 kilometers of Beijing and was originally put up in 2001. The enterprise specializes in cathode stack production (these stacks being one of the elements of an electrolysis bath needed for aluminum production) and has become