‘Our sales have been plummeting since this May, with an average drop of 50% and the main reason for this being the continuing troubles involved in getting a car loan,’ ASMOTO SLAVIA car sales center Managing Director Dmitriy Usachev said to an UrBC reporter. ‘The problem is that the state subsidies scheme that helps to cover the loan interest rates is not very efficient at the moment. Of all Skoda makes, for example, only Fabia got on the program, whereas the rest of the models, even those within the required 600,000-ruble price range, still haven’t made it to the list. This is an obvious

GM-AvtoVAZ joint venture is not going to produce any Chevrolet Niva makes in August 2009, the enterprise’s press officer announced recently. ‘The assembly line has to be stopped because of our new working schedule. The workers will be compensated for the stoppage in accordance with the Russian Federation Labor Code, which means they will be getting two-thirds of their average monthly pay. As for the personnel involved in the planned jobs and managerial things, they will be paid by the hour,’ says the press officer. GM-AvtoVAZ is a JV manufacturing all-wheel drive Chevrolet Niva cars. Last

ChTPZ Group’s Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant shipped 540,600 tons of tubular goods to their consumers in the first half of 2009, which was actually 38% less than the 867,800 tons delivered to them a year earlier. The company says the drops in sales have to do with a drastic fall in the demand on the domestic market (they key market, in fact). In fact, the home demand plummeted by 35% in the first half of the year compared with the six months of 2008.

The international rating agency decreased the metallurgical and mining giant Evraz Group SA’s long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating as well as its priority unsecured rating from BB to BB-. Fitch has also placed Mastercroft and Evraz Group SA’s long-term foreign currency IDRs and their priority unsecured ratings on the Rating Watch, with Negative Rating Outlook. Now Mastercroft, with most of its assets based in Russia, is Evraz’s key daughter enterprise. Both companies’ short-term IDRs have been affirmed at B. ‘The rating drop indicates that Fitch feels the steps Evraz management

MRSK Urala, the local electricity supplier, fulfilled successfully 4,190 agreements providing for new customers’ hookup to their electricity supply networks. All in all, the company got 1,928 new consumers in the first half of 2009. ‘Our newly subscribed consumers are largely those who signed agreements with us earlier on. Then, we received 7,591 new applications in the first six months of the year, which was 9.5% less than in the first half of 2008,’ the company reports. MRSK Urala’s experts report their customers’ characteristics have changed lately. For one, the total power volume they

Grinvill Management Company is to undergo bankruptcy proceedings, Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court ruled. The company applied for insolvency of its own accord on June 4, 2009. The same kind of petition was placed with the court by Oxana Yu. Kolmogorova on June 30, 2009. The company used to be putting up Grinvill cottage area within ten kilometers of Yekaterinburg, down Chelyabinsk motorway and nearby the settlement of Bolshoye Sedelnikovo. The customers could choose among six house layouts with area ranging between 227.43 and 487 square meters. The company’s bankruptcy application was