‘A drop in profits is definitely one of Sverdlovsk Region’s key problems. We cut back on everything we possibly could in the budgets for 2008 and 2009; only now can we actually start raising our current expenses limits,’ the region’s Economy Minister Mikhail Maksimov said during his meeting with Sverdlovsk Region’s town mayors. ‘This is why the issue of tax legalization is extremely important just now. In October 2009, the government adopted a provision on helping the economy’s real sector make more profit, so the recession-defying committees now must solve the issues related to enterprises’

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) recently adopted a number of employee training, re-training, and professional development schemes for 2010. ‘The company comes up with such programs every year; the schemes are based on the educational needs and applications of the employees from various departments. MMK’s training and re-training system covers all personnel categories and all our divisions. For one, the company spent over 100 million RUR on the programs last year alone. The plan for the year 2010 will involve over 13,000 workers, a lot of whom are going to get their second

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and ZAO ChTPZ Group held a meeting on MMK’s premises to look into the results of their performance in 2009 and to discuss their future cooperation. ChTPZ Group’s representatives demonstrated Chelyabinsk Tube-Rolling Plant’s electric welding unit for pipes (currently under construction). The future unit, called Vysota-239, is one of Chelyabinsk Region’s largest investment projects worth 21 billion RUR. The steel plates produced at MMK’s Mill 5000 are expected to be the main source of raw materials for Chelyabinsk Tube-Rolling Plant’s new production

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) took part in the 5th international conference on zinc-coated and painted steel in Moscow Region. Over 130 participants from eighty Russian enterprises attended the event. The conference was devoted to production, processing, and use of coated steels in the construction industry as well as others. Most importantly, the attendees spoke about the current state and the development trends of the Russian and global coated steel market in 2010, the launch of the new steel-coating facilities on the home market, and the need to protect the domestic market as

Trade Finance Magazine declared the agreement on financing the construction of MMK Atakaş the Deal of the Year. Trade Finance Magazine is a specialized edition belonging to Euromoney Institutional Investor Group. ‘Despite all the problems in the commodity markets and particularly the ferrous sector through 2009, Russian company OJSC MMK put together a ground-breaking deal to secure financing for the MMK Atakas flat steel making plant in Turkey. The transaction is a worthy winner of a Trade Finance magazine Deal of the Year award for 2009,’ says the magazine’s editor Jonathan Bell. MMK Atakaş

The volume of loans offered by ZAO Uralprivatbank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year decreased by 30.7% in January 2010. The figures declined from 7.5 million RUR on January 1, 2010 to 5.2 million RUR on February 1, 2010. These data are available from the bank’s report uploaded on the Central Bank of Russia’s official website.

The overdue debt on loans given by OOO UIC-Bank to private profit-making organizations rose by 4.8% in January 2010 and reached 7.64 million RUR on February 1, 2010. These data are available from the bank’s report uploaded on the Central Bank of Russia’s official website.

VSMPO-Avisma Corporation started getting smaller orders in the last quarter of 2008, VSMPO-Avisma Corporation’s General Director Mikhail Voyevodin said in his interview to Kommersant. ‘Our customers place their orders at least six months before the manufacturing date, so we usually have orders for the first half of the coming year as early as September. We received plenty of orders in the summer of 2008, but in September and October, our customers started canceling or downsizing their orders. It was clear by December that the year 2009 would be very hard,’ he noted. ‘As a result, we only

Ural Airlines is now selling the e-tickets for the flights operated under the carrier’s interline agreement with Air Berlin. The company’s passengers can now buy electronic tickets for connecting flights of both companies and go to Greece, Denmark, Spain, Canada, China, Mexico, France, the South African Republic, Jamaica, and many other places. The agreement also means that Ural Airlines can now sell its tickets through agencies cooperating with Air Berlin all over the world. One good thing about e-tickets is that the check-in procedure gets much easier and that all the information about the

‘VSMPO-Avisma Corporation’s employees keep working fewer hours a week, and I don’t think the situation will change any time before the summer. The corporation employs 21,000 people at the moment, 5,000 of whom are working a short week. These figures do not include the workers of our daughter enterprises. All in all, a little under 6,000 people had to switch to shorter hours; the measure was directly related to the actual amount of work available at the enterprise,’ VSMPO-Avisma Corporation’s General Director Mikhail Voyevodin said in his interview to Kommersant. ‘The first changes were

Rostechnadzor (the state technological, environmental, and nuclear safety watchdog) looked into the causes of a fatal accident at one of the mines belonging to Uralkaliy, a potassium fertilizers producer. A mine operator was killed by the rock mass caving during the drifting operations on February 18, 2010. Rostechnadzor came to the conclusion that the accident had been caused by the presence of some free gas within the operator’s working area, poor production discipline, non-compliance with the Drifting Regulations, and poor technological organization.

The volume of loans issued by OAO VUZ-Bank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year decreased by 1.396 million RUR in January 2010. The figures dropped from 19.925 million RUR on January 1, 2010 to 18.259 million RUR on February 1, 2010. These data are available from the bank’s report uploaded on the Central Bank of Russia’s official website.

The overdue debt on loans offered by Uralfinprombank to Russian citizens rose by 190,000 RUR, or 12.38% in January 2010; the figure increased from 1.345 million RUR on January 1, 2010 to 1.535 million RUR on February 1, 2010. These data are available from the bank’s report uploaded on the Central Bank of Russia’s official website.

The volume of private individuals’ demand deposits at Bank24.ru plunged by 17.5 million RUR in January 2010. The figures dropped from 52.247 million RUR on January 1, 2010 to 34.747 million RUR on February 1, 2010. These data are available from the bank’s report uploaded on the Central Bank of Russia’s official website.

The deputies of Chelyabinsk Region’s Legislative Assembly approved of having current Mayor of Chelyabinsk Mikhail Yurevitch as the new Governor of Chelyabinsk Region. Mikhail Yurevitch was presented to the deputies as a potential Governor by Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev. Petr Sumin, who has been head of the region since 1996 and whose term expires on April 22, 2010, chose not to propose himself as the candidate for the new term, RIA Novosti reports.

According to the Russian Federation Ministry of Emergencies’ preliminary report, last Friday’s fire outbreak at Hyatt Regency Ekaterinburg was caused by failing to observe the safety rules related to the use of the hotel sauna’s furnace. The Ministry’s Sverdlovsk Region division received a message about the fire on the hotel’s 20th floor at 11:13 PM. Twenty-five vehicles and eighty-one firefighters set off for the scene of the accident at once. 380 people had to be evacuated, the spokesperson for the Russian Federation Ministry of Emergencies’ Sverdlovsk Region division says. The fire was

Russian Railways Public Company expects to enhance the quality of Uralvagonzavod’s produce through both organizations’ joint effort. As it is, the quality of the Ural plant’s goods could still be worked on, President of Russian Railways Public Company Vladimir Yakunin announced at a briefing in Yekaterinburg, RIA Novosti says. ‘Today’s railway vehicles standards call for an entirely different quality level,’ he explained. Yakunin said he would not like to give any specific examples, but the company was not at all happy with some of Uralvagonzavod’s vehicles. ‘We hope that our joint efforts

The BOD of Uralsvyazinform (Urals’ major telecommunications provider) decided that the company’s current General Director Anatoly Ufimkin can resign before the end of his term and that Sergey Lukash should be appointed the company’s new GD. The decision was taken at the BOD meeting on March 19, 2010. Now Anatoly Ufimkin’s resignation was accepted after the executive had applied for this himself. Uralsvyazinform’s BOD Chairman and General Director of Svyazinvest Evgeniy Yurchenko thanked Anatoly Ufimkin for many years’ hard work at the company and offered him the position of a Counselor to

Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch and OOO Volkswagen Financial Services RUS started offering their customers special loans meant for buying new Audi, Volkswagen, and Skoda automobiles. This loan project is part of Sberbank of Russia and OOO Volkswagen Financial Services RUS strategic cooperation program. Under these new loan agreements, when using Sberbank’s Avtokredit loan (including the cases when the loan is offered within the government’s interest payment subsidies program) to buy new Audi, Volkswagen, and Skoda automobiles from the official dealers, the customers will have to pay a loan

OAO Pnevmostroymashina published its open address to the company’s creditor banks through Kommersant. The letter was carried as an advertising material and called for understanding and support on the creditors’ part. Now the plant’s creditors are to meet on March 29, 2010. ‘Sadly, the recession has put an end to our productive cooperation; Also, the plummeting demand for hydraulic equipment among all the basic construction and road machinery manufacturers of Russia and the CIS has made things difficult for the plant. Our sales dropped by over ten times in just four months, we were forced to