Grossmart, a hypermarket located in Park House mall at 50 Sulimov St. in Yekaterinburg, has been exposing a much poorer range of some products lately; moreover, some of the shelves were even dismantled altogether. Grossmart, with its 4,200 square meters of trade area, was opened on August 21, 2005. It then offered customers a wide assortment of foods, including more than two hundred kinds of vegetables and fruit, fifty or so kinds of meat and meat products, fish, and seafood, as well as 2,200 kinds of strong drinks. The hypermarket has not provided any explanations yet; Grossmart’s director

As the region’s businesses have already used their foreign worker quotas for the year 2008, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Migration Service has stopped accepting applications for job permits from foreign citizens for the time being. The job permits in question involve people who come from the countries where no visa is required for coming to Russia. According to Decree 73n issued by the Russian Federation Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development on February 18, 2008, Sverdlovsk Region’s job permits quota for foreign workers amounted to 47,500 people. The figure resulted

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UralTransBank to state-run for-profit organizations for 181 days to 1 year went down by 84.03% (from 1.466 million RUR to 234,000 RUR) in January-May 2008.

‘There are already over a thousand people in Sverdlovsk Region who were prevented from going abroad by the judiciary authorities. The limitations apply only to the foreign countries, a person is free to travel anywhere within Russia,’ head of Sverdlovsk Region’s Officers of Justice Administration Vladimir Schepotin announced in the course of a recent press conference. These authorities are empowered to prevent a person from going abroad only if there is a corresponding court decision to this extent (the decision normally resulting from a person’s debts). The limitations apply to both business

RBC.Rating’s analysts came up with the report on the performance of Russia’s largest banks in the first quarter of 2008. It appears that the country’s banking system’s development has slowed down a bit, as the total volume of banks’ assets only rose by 37.5% between April 2007 and April 2008 against the 49.7% increase between April 2006 and April 2007. Most Ural banks’ growth was comparable with the country’s average figures in January-March 2008. SKB-Bank was the fastest-growing bank among those based in the Urals on the country’s Top 100 list; the bank’s assets went up by over 65%

According to Airbus’s official data, Ural Airlines has recently set an unprecedented operation record involving the use of A-320 aircraft. The company’s daily average use of Airbus planes came to 13.02 hours in March 2008 (while all the scheduled maintenance operations were strictly adhered to). ‘We looked into our data and have to say that this is the most impressive figure among all the existing carriers of the world,’ says Airbus’s local representative. This means that Ural Airlines’ Marketing and Timetable experts managed to plan the flight timetable and make amends for the average

The data regarding the final stage of repurchasing Koltsovo airport’s shares was made available via the airport’s official website on June 4, 2008 and removed from the newswire the next day. The airport initially announced that they were willing to buy the shares from the stockholders according to their actual value. At the moment, the airport’s stock is owned by Koltsovo-Invest (RENOVA Group), with its 45.26% shareholding, Rosimuschestvo, with its 34.56% shareholding, and Cyprus-based Fulgate Consultants Limited with its 6.6% shareholding. The official purchaser of shares is Rusaviaholding,

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of nongovernmental financial institutions’ deposits in Perviy Respublikanskiy Bank valid for 31 to 180 days went down by 50% (from 10 million RUR to 5 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Bank24.ru to sole traders for up to 30 days dropped by 70% (from 50 million RUR to 15 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (part of ChTPZ Group) had two kinds of its pipes (particularly thin-walled pipes made of corrosion-resistant steel according to technical specifications 14-159-293 and improved quality capillary tubes made of some corrosion-resistant alloy according to technical specifications 14-159-264 meant for the nuclear power industry) tested by a number of experts within the framework of Russian Quality, the federal program. Both kinds of pipes were classed as the highest quality ones. The spokesperson for ChTPZ Group reports the evaluation process consisted of analyzing the

URSA Bank set up its 122nd office in Revda, Sverdlovsk Region. The new outlet offers its customers consumer loans and mortgages as well as loans meant for facilitating business development and other kinds of crediting schemes and other banking services, URSA Bank’s press officer says. This Revdinskiy office is located at 21 Gorkiy St. and welcomes visitors from 9 AM to 8 PM on weekdays, from 10 AM to 6 PM on Saturdays, and from 10 AM to 4 PM on Sundays. Legal entities are dealt with from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekdays.

The net profit made by Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works in the first quarter of 2008 (calculated on the basis of US GAAP) reached $617.7m, which is 35% better than in the first quarter of 2007, the spokesperson for the enterprise reports. At the same time, the company’ EBITDA margin went down from 43% to 47% in January-March 2008. Experts believe this has to do with Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works acquiring Maxi Group’s 50% plus one share in December 2007; this cost the former some $600m. Maxi Group then admitted that the company was on the verge of collapse, as most banks refused to let

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was featured in Credcard’s rating of Russia’s top twenty banks that are seen as the most reliable ones by the cardholders. The rating, featuring both regional and federal-scale banks, was based on the results of online voting (with 25,000 respondents taking part). The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was given the 13th best position and received 7.67% out of 8.62% among the Urals-based banks that made it to the list. The results of the rating are an independent assessment of banking services made by the customers through a special

3.064 billion RUR will be allocated for construction and renovating of highways in Chelyabinsk Region this year. The spokesperson for the region’s Ministry for Construction, Infrastructure, and Roads reports 1.876 billion RUR will be supplied by the region and 1.187 billion RUR will be supplied by the federal authorities. 1 billion RUR will be spent on Chelyabinsk roads and the rest will be invested in regional highways, including 50.3 kilometers worth of new roads and five bridges and overhead crossings with the total length of 556 meters. In addition, 323 kilometers worth of roads in the

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, 05.06.2008 A new maintenance center will be set up at MMK Atakaş A. Ş., a Russian-Turkish joint venture, by the end of 2008. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and Atakaş, the Turkish firm, are working on the construction of a metallurgical complex in Turkey. The new enterprise will have premises in Istanbul and in Iskenderun and is expected to produce over 2.3 million tons of flat stock a year. Two maintenance centers will be set up in Istanbul and Iskenderun as well as a seaport (capable of servicing vessels whose draught comes to up to 80,000 tons. The machinery

Aston, the local developer, is believed to postpone the commissioning of its Aston Plaza, an eighteen-storey building in Radischev-Gurzufskaya St, until the end of 2008. In the meantime, the builder’s official website still says that the building will be finished in the third quarter of 2008, even though their press officer does admit the terms have changed. Remarkably, Aston keeps putting up the building despite Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities’ demands that the construction process should be stopped. The building in question has already been featured in eleven lawsuits,

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UniCreditBank to state-run for-profit organizations for 91 to 180 days went down by 86.62% (from 134.5 million RUR to 18 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

The Bank of Russia came up with a report on the Russian bank cards market’s trends and prospects. According to this report, Russian citizens are starting to use their cards more often in their daily life; as for the credit cards, most of the cardholders are between twenty-five and forty-four years old. Last year, Russian cardholders performed a total of 1.6 billion card transactions (involving 6.5 trillion RUR) both within the country and abroad. These figures exceed the ones for 2006 by 36% and 47%, respectively. The country’s banks had issued 103.5 million cards by January 1, 2008, which is

Starting June 16, 2008, MegaFon Ural is to launch two new offers on text messages: a package of seventy-five text messages and a subscription with seventy-five text messages available. Both offers are available for 75 RUR (VAT included); the former will be valid for twenty days, the latter until the end of the current month. The terms of subscribing to the offers are the same as those for the company’s similar packages and subscriptions, MegaFon Ural’s press officer reports. At the same time, beginning from June 16, 2008, the package of one hundred text messages and the subscription with one

‘The so-called holiday loans naturally become much more popular in the summer, as the customers need to pay for their vacations, get ready for these trips and pack as well as make sure they have a certain sum of money on them when they go somewhere,’ says URSA Bank’s Ural branch’s Mass Lending Director Tatiana Sosnovskikh. She believes express loans enjoy the greatest demand, as it only takes a little time to get such a loan, while the amount will be quite sufficient for covering holiday expenses. ‘Most of our customers prefer to use credit cards instead of having to carry cash around,’