Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel is to visit Slovakia on April 3-4, 2008 as a member of an official delegation headed by Head of Russian Federation Government Viktor Zubkov, the spokesperson for the Governor reports.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank to state-run for-profit organizations for 181 days to 1 year went down by 14.89% (from 370.12 million RUR to 315,000 RUR) in January 2008.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel accepted the resignation of First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government and region’s Minister for Industry and Science Vladimir Molchanov. Mr. Molchanov decided to leave office of his own will in order to become a retiree, the spokesperson for the Government reports.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of private individuals’ deposits in Tagilbank valid for 91 to 180 days went down by 14.16% (from 80.878 million RUR to 69.421 million RUR) in January 2008.

‘96 people, headed by V. Zolotarev, refused to go up the ground after their shift was over at Krasnaya Shapochka mine (part of Severouralsk Bauxite Mine, aka SUBR) on March 26, 2008. These miners are still under the ground and are thus preventing the other shifts and mine sections from operating. The ongoing strike made SUBR management halt the other mines’ work for the time being,’ says a statement made by Russia’s Ore and Mining Trade Union’s Central Council and signed by the union’s chairperson M. Tarasenko. The Council reports they consider the strikers’ actions to be a selfish

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of March 28, 2008, the share price of BCS Bank Stock Fund (BrokerCreditService Management Company) has gone down by 19.56% since the beginning of the year.

Nashi Dengi, the financial magazine, coordinated some free information workshops for all those willing to come; the event (part of the magazine’s educational project targeted at Russian provinces and improving the quality of life there), known as Financial Literacy Days, was held at the Ural State University’s Assembly Hall. Reports were made by experts from the area’s leading banks and investment companies, including those presented by Sberbank’s Ural branch’s acting Securities Director Alexander Vasilyev and Private Loans Director Svetlana Galanova. Over one hundred workshop attendants were

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s new VISA Olympics offer will be available from April 1, 2008 to May 31, 2008. To use the new offer, one only needs to pay for one’s purchases by a Visa card (the sum of the transaction must come to at least 500 RUR); you can’t use the offer if you use your card to withdraw cash from an ATM or a bank outlet. On June 18, 2008, the drawing of lottery prizes for the Russian citizens who’ve used their cards will be organized. The lottery participants will be given a chance to win one hundred gym bags and five main prizes: trips for two to the

March and April are traditionally the time when banks publish their annual reports for the previous year, while the country’s leading media usually spend some time analyzing these reports. URSA Bank, for example, was rated Russia’s 17th largest bank in terms of net asset volume (as of January 1, 2008) by RosBusinessConsulting, Forbes, and Kommersant-Dengi. In addition, Dengi gave the bank the 18th position in Russia’s largest banks rating based on the volume of the banks’ own funds. According to RosBusinessConsulting’s rating of Best Deposit Banks, URSA Bank was given the 12th position in

Nikolai Krupinin, Deputy Head of Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) chaired a meeting on the results of checking VIZ Stal’s compliance with the existing conservational and environmental regulations. The enterprise was inspected in this respect between February 11, 2008 and March 6, 2008, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor says. It was revealed in the course of the inspection that the enterprise was guilty of some grave environmental offenses, therefore VIZ Stal was ordered

URSA Bank’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary won the first prize in the Best Personal Savings Program category at the Lending and Investment Quality Festival in Yekaterinburg on March 26-28, 2008. The event was coordinated by Quality Guarantee, the innovational technologies center, with some support from Yekaterinburg Consumer Rights Committee. There were twelve all-Russian, regional, and local banks with offices in Yekaterinburg that attended the festival altogether. Apart from the first prize, a number of URSA Bank’s products received some honorary diplomas: the bank’s Holiday deposit got a diploma

Sverdlovsk Region’s Government thanked SKB-Bank’s management for the company’s great contribution to organization and coordination of Russian Expo Arms-2007, the International Exposition of Armament, Defense Technologies and Ammunition, the bank’s press officer reports. First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government for Economic Policies and Prospective Development and the region’s Minister for Economics and Labor Mikhail Maximov expressed his genuine gratitude to the bank for the company’s willingness to cooperate, which adds to the country’s defense capabilities as well as to the Urals’

‘We got about 8,000 complaints from the city’s dwellers last year, and some 200 complains came from travelers; however, we only handled the cases which could not be settled out of court,’ Chairman of Yekaterinburg Consumer Rights Committee Andrei Artemiev said to UrBC. Mr. Artemiev says he wouldn’t be able to single out one travel agent that did a particularly bad job: rather, the number of claims was directly proportional to the number of an agent’s customers. ‘On the legal side of the issue, travelers have to beware of the so-called time-sharing terms, when a customer’s tour only covers

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Universal Bank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 94.36% (from 9.75 million RUR to 550,000 RUR) in January 2008.

Yekaterinburg’s Central Department of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) published the results of inspecting the city’s travel agents. After the Russian tourism legislation was modified in 2007, Rospotrebnadzor had to inspect a number of companies (including Palma Tours, SverdlovskKurort, Zheltyi Chemodan, and Time Travel) after complaints had been filed by some of their customers. The inspections revealed that these travel agents violated the existing sanitary regulations as well as some of consumers’ rights: 1. The companies failed to fully inform the customers about the

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of March 27, 2008, the share price of Troika Dialog Federalniy (Troika Dialog Management Company) has gone down by 23.17% since the beginning of the year.

Ukraine’s Supreme Rada approved of a bill that limits the advertising of strong drinks and tobacco products. These limits are much stricter than those imposed by the Russian government, but they are to be introduced gradually between January 1, 2009 and January 1, 2010. First, no alcohol or tobacco products will be advertised through billboards or any other type of outdoor ads, and one year later, no such ads will appear in any kind of mass media, excluding specialized magazines. Nevertheless, these upcoming changes do not alarm the Ukrainian strong drinks producers too much, as they usually

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of non-profit NGOs’ deposits in Bank URALSIB valid for up to 30 days dropped by 99.33% (from 39.3 million RUR to 262,000 RUR) in January 2008.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of call loans given by VUZ Bank to private individuals went down by 6.69% (from 8.72 million RUR to 8.136 million RUR) in January 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of natural persons’ deposits and other investments in TagilBank valid for 31 to 90 days went down by 20% (from 36.908 million RUR to 29.516 million RUR) in January 2008.