Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin congratulated Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) workers and management on the recent launch of their unique plate Mill 5000 in the letter he sent to MMK BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov. ‘I am sincerely grateful to you and all of the enterprise’s numerous workers for the great and victorious launch of the unique Mill 5000. This is a long hoped-for, memorable, and crucial event for Chelyabinsk Region, the Russian metallurgical industry, and the entire country. This moment is made even greater by coming up at these hard times when many good

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration court settled the claim laid by UKS-Invest against Avtofrans on July 24, 2009. The plaintiff insisted on the defendant paying them 6,110,680.91 RUR, of which 5,871,434.01 RUR is the money owned by Avtofrans to the plaintiff for the jobs related to their construction agreement. The agreement was signed on January 17, 2006 and obliged UKS-Invest to finance the construction, to act as the building owner and find the contractors. The remaining 239,246.9 RUR is the interest charged for use of borrowed money between January 14, 2009 and May 28, 2009 (in compliance with

Ural Industrial Rubber Products Plant intends to cut production by 27.7%. According to the company’s General Director Sergey Vlasov, one of the business’s major problems is over-developed infrastructure and the expenses related to its maintenance. The executive informed Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Industry and Science that they were willing to allocate more than 10,000 square meters of their premises to small and medium enterprises. As a matter of fact, the plant has let out 10,000 square meters already.

SKB-Bank’s latest Fall Money deposit (launched as recently as July 1, 2009) has already attracted over 500 million RUR worth of private customers’ investment. ‘The customers are attracted by the really appealing deposit terms: after all, we offer them a 17.01% annual interest rate after only six months of the deposit period, provided there is at least 10,000 RUR in their deposit account. Given the bank’s great dependability, this is an unprecedented offer on the market,’ says SKB-Bank’s Retail Director Tatiana Ushkova. SKB-Bank’s other recent deposit, known as Master, has caused an influx of

Uralvagonzavod Finance announced its net profits and asset value went down in the second quarter of 2009. The company explains the reason for the 88.7% decrease in the asset value was the shrinking of their long-term liabilities volume: for one, the enterprise retired its 02 bond issue worth 1,980,824,000 RUR (in terms of face value) in the second quarter of the year. As for the dropping net profits (from 11,000 RUR to 5,000 RUR), this had to do with the smaller scale of financial investment.

Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank) announced it was about to introduce the new monitoring and customer support modes related to the bank’s processing services. Starting July 24, 2009, no 24/7 customer support will be available any longer. The news has been reported via the bank’s official website. From this date on, the access to customer support will be provided from 9 AM to 11 PM on weekdays and from 11 AM to 11 PM on weekends.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said during a recent meeting with his deputies and the regional ministers that the launch of Mill 5000 at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) was the absolute highlight of the week as well as of the year, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. ‘Head of Russian Federation Government Vladimir Putin spoke very highly of this project,’ the Governor observed. Sumin explained that his talks with the metallurgical enterprise’s representatives and their key customers made it clear that the new hot-rolled plate iron would enjoy enormous demand. The

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin declared at a recent cabinet meeting that, despite the budget deficit, 2.777 billion RUR would be allocated from the region’s budget on the top priority items apart from the current expenses such as the public sector workers’ salaries and vacation bonuses and social benefit payments. Among these top priority items are the federal cardiovascular surgery and positron emission tomography center and the regional clinical hospital’s sixth extension. Then, 200 million RUR will be directed to preparation for the heating season, 500 million RUR will be spent

The last meeting of the governmental committee for support of Sverdlovsk Region’s enterprises was devoted to the problems of Egorshinskiy radio plant. It was detected that the company’s wage arrears amounted to 61.7 million RUR on July 1, 2009. In addition, the plant owes its creditors 1.41 billion RUR (including bank loans and interest) and has 85.4 million RUR worth of accounts receivable. Then, the plant’s debts to the region’s budget and the non-budgetary funds have recently exceeded 75.7 million RUR. Most experts declared that it was impossible for the enterprise to avoid bankruptcy

‘We know that Yekaterinburg’s airport increased the price of some services rendered to the carriers, but this increase had been coordinated with the Federal Tariff Service, so the Federal Antimonopoly Service committee has nothing to complain about here,’ head of FAS’s Sverdlovsk Region division Tatiana Kolotova said at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg raised its fees on July 21, 2009. This involved the fees charged for taking off and landing, for aviation safety, and for using the airport terminal. The price increase came to 18% to 29% on average.

The last meeting of the governmental committee for support of Sverdlovsk Region’s enterprises was devoted to the situation at AMUR car factory. It was reported that the factory’s wage arrears reached 55.9 million RUR on July 1, 2009, which comes to about 30% of all such debts within Sverdlovsk Region. ‘Even though the enterprise is functional and has every chance to reach a good production level, its socioeconomic status is actually on the verge of collapse. The company’s manufacturing production output was reduced to one-quarter of its original volume in the first half of the year, whereas

Mosgorsud (Moscow Municipal Court) ruled that Bank VEFK former BOD Chairman should stay in custody until October 26, 2009, ITAR-TASS reports. The bank’s former BOD Chairman A. Gitelson, the bank’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board Vitaliy Ryabov, and Ryabov’s deputy Ivan Bibinov are accused of two instances of large-scale embezzlement committed by an organized group. The charges are based on the corresponding article of the Russian Federation Criminal Code. The investigative team believes the accused embezzled Bank VEFK’s funds twice over the years 2007 and 2008, stealing over one billion

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced the launch of a new service for their Business Club members. The new service consists in access to a special forum located on the bank’s corporate website. ‘Thanks to online communication, every club member will be able to solve all the banking service- related problems much faster, as well as to find various counteragents that suit them best,’ the bank reports. ‘Special purchasing offers and contacts with numerous enterprises are the Club’s chief advantages. Another important benefit is that the Club offers its members a chance to

‘We have been faced with a number of problems in our attempts to cooperate with Sverdlovsk Region’s suppliers. They seem rather reluctant and set very high prices for their produce. For one, the local food manufacturers just don’t offer any nice prices on chicken and meat: the price of Khoroshiy Vkus starts at 280 RUR per kilo, the ex-factory price of Reftinskaya poultry plant is 102 RUR per kilo,’ the director of X5 Retail Group’s Pyaterochka chain store Ural branch Alexei Vaganov said at a meeting chaired by Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev. The meeting was dedicated to the

Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov visited the town of Pervouralsk to look at the state of affairs at Russian Chrome 1915. It was detected that the plant was unable to break even because a lot of money was spent on keeping their slurry fields and cesspools (full of 6.8 million tons of environmentally hazardous compounds) in environmentally safe condition. The enterprise has to spend 70 million RUR a year on renting the land allotment, paying emission fees, and maintaining the cleaning facilities. So, the plant decided to ask the regional government for help. One of the ways

Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities for transportation carried out an inspection of Koltsovo Airport customs. The inspection was aimed at checking the customs’ compliance with the anti-bribery legislation. As a result of this check, numerous violations of the Federal Act on the State Civil Service of the Russian Federation were detected. For instance, a number of civil servants violated the existing regulations on income and property declarations when submitting their declarations for 2008. Some of them failed to indicate that they owned some real estate and vehicles as well as

VIZ-Stal (part of NLMK Group) looked into the results of its performance in the second quarter of 2009. According to the official data provided by the company, the enterprise produced 22,000 tons of goods (including 21,700 tons of transformer steel and 200 tons of dynamo steel) over this period of time. The reason for increased transformer steel output is the greater order portfolio. Now the orders rose in number partially because of the stoppage at Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) transformer steel production unit for the time of repairs.

‘MRSK Holding chose the Chinese equipment suppliers purely on the basis of prices. What this actually means is that the holding refused to support the domestic manufacturers and decided to save some money,’ the spokesperson for Ural Turbine Plant Elena Venediktova said to an UrBC reporter. MRSK Holding and their Chinese partner signed a memorandum on economic and trade cooperation. The memorandum states that the Chinese power machinery manufacturers are going to take part in the restoration of the Russian energy complex. The project is expected to take about a decade and is worth some $100bn.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to consider STKS-Nedvizhimost’s bankruptcy application on July 21, 2009. The bankruptcy commissioner will be selected among the members of Self-Regulatory Bankruptcy Commissioners Organization of the North-West, a non-commercial partnership.

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) is to resume the investigation of the case involving Delta Credit Commercial Bank this week. The bank is suspected of violating Article 11 (part 3) of the Federal Competition Protection Act. FAS’s local division believes the violation could consist in the banks colluding to coordinate their economic activity related to their mortgage lending practices. For one, Delta Credit is reported to impose special standards on the customers that need to be complied with for the mortgage retirement.