The white goods and consumer electronics chain store intends to halve the number of the hypermarkets run in the Russian regions; the shopping space thus made available will probably be sub-leased in order to cut back on expenses. Unprofitable shops might be closed down altogether, RBC daily reports. Nevertheless, Technosila is still hoping to reduce its spending in some other ways. A few real estate agencies informed RBC daily that the company was going to cut its shopping space in provinces from 4,500 sq m to 2,200 sq m. Technosila did admit it had halved the area of one of its Ryazan-based

The Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation keeps looking into the business activity of Metro Cash & Carry upon its suppliers’ complaint, Kommersant reports. The FAS intends to compare the store’s policies before and after the enactment of the Trade Law and believes Metro might have violated this law. When all the by-laws and provisions come into full effect in the second half of 2010, the Service will check a number of other retailers, Kommersant says. According to Kommersant, the FAS has asked Metro’s suppliers for the copies of delivery agreements for 2008-2009, the

The Russian Federation General Prosecutor’s Office applied to Moroccan law-enforcement authorities, asking for the extradition of Alexei Kalinichenko back to Russia, where the man suspected of setting up a pyramid scheme will have to face a criminal trial, the Office’s PR Director Marina Gridneva said to UrBC. ‘It is too early at the moment to predict just how soon the application will be considered by the Moroccan authorities and what their decision would be,’ Ms Gridneva added. In Russia, Alexei Kalinichenko has been charged with setting up Global Gaming Expo, a financial pyramid, and thus

The Ural division of MTS, one of Russia’s top three mobile operators, confirmed to UrBC that the company was about to relocate its call center from Yekaterinburg to Samara. ‘The project is at the preliminary stage at the moment. We expect the relocation to start in June. Our Yekaterinburg office currently employs excellently trained workers whom we are interested in keeping, which is why MTS will do its best to help those of them who agree to move to Samara adjust to the new place. Those employees who prefer to stay in Yekaterinburg will be offered jobs within the company’s Ural division,

Sverdlovsk Region Federation of Trade Unions won the case regarding the claim laid against METRO Cash & Carry’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary. The defendant was accused of non-compliance with the labor law, and the court ruled that the plaintiff was right and that the notion of ‘minimal guarantees’ for harmful labor conditions did not depend on the degree of harmfulness, the spokesperson for the Federation reports. ‘When Sverdlovsk Region Federation of Trade Unions carried out an all-round inspection of the company’s labor law compliance practices, METRO turned out to violate governmental

‘An educational change is one of the main challenges proposed by the Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev. Without some knowledge upgrades and attempts to bring up a new personality type this country will never grow stable,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin announced at a meeting with the Ural colleges’ students. ‘Sverdlovsk Region has more students here than do many other parts of Russia; however, the creation of Ural Federal University does not mean it is going to absorb all the other local colleges and vocational schools. We’ll have a hierarchy like the rest of the world,’

Moscow Arbitration Court ruled in favor of the decision taken by Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service regarding OAO Concern EnergoAtom, the spokesperson for the FAS reports. The FAS declared that Concern EnergoAtom created preferential terms of tender for ZAO GMZ Khimmash and violated the procedure of determining the tender’s winner. On November 28, 2008, OAO Concern EnergoAtom and ZAO GMZ Khimmash signed an agreement for the production and delivery of air conditioners for Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant’s generating unit No. 4. The agreement was signed after Concern EnergoAtom organized an

УрБК, Екатеринбург, 10.03.2010. «Изменение образования — одна из важнейших задач, поставленных президентом России Дмитрием Медведевым. Без модернизации знаний, без создания, воспитания новой личности страна никогда не будет устойчивой», — заявил губернатор Свердловской области Александр Мишарин в ходе встречи со студентами уральских вузов. «Свердловская область является, пожалуй, одним из самых «студенческих» регионов страны. При этом создание Уральского федерального университета не означает, что он поглотит все вузы и техникумы. Формирование УрФУ значит, что будет вертикаль, как во всем

Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Market Service refused to allow Sverdlovsk Region-based ZAO Sistema Profit Management Company to register an additional issue of ordinary registered non-certificated shares through Order 62-10-294/pz-i issued by the Service’s division on March 2, 2010.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin looked at the premises of Uralvagonzavod and considered the plant’s development programs during his recent visit to Nizhniy Tagil. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, Alexander Misharin was surprised to find out what the plant worker’s average salary was. ‘Why does such a large machine-building plant pays wages that are smaller than the region’s average? Unless you go for a pay rise and introduce a social benefits package, you will have no skilled workforce to hire,’ the Governor said to the plant’s management. ‘Following my visit

‘The bankruptcy proceedings involving OOO Ural Meat-Packing Plant have already begun, but this is more or less a formality. As far as we know, OOO Agroservice has been renting the plant’s premises for about a year now,’ Tatiana Novikova from Yekaterinburg Commodities Market Committee informed UrBC. The opening bid for Ural Meat-Packing Plant (the successor of Yekaterinburg Meat-Packing Plant) has been determined at 6 million RUR. The plant’s representative repots the auction will take place within the next forty-five days. ‘The production has actually been on the rise lately, so OOO

OAO SOGAZ was recently fined for non-compliance with the antimonopoly law. The case started when Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service ruled on September 10, 2009 that OAO SOGAZ had violated Article 11 (part 1, paragraph 5) of the Competition Protection Act. The violation consisted in that the company signed a cooperation agreement and an agency contract with AKB Bank of Moscow, the implementation of which in car loans-issuing process might result or resulted in inflicting disadvantageous terms and conditions upon the borrowing parties. These terms were also

Investing in housing no longer a good idea, FINAM claims ‘Housing prices no longer tend to go up, and we believe they will stay relatively stable throughout this year, even though the trend might change later. In our opinion, however, there are no fundamental price growth-boosting factors at play at the moment,’ says Maxim Klyagin, an analyst from FINAM Investment Company. Meanwhile, OOO Fin-Invest-Stroi, the developer of Admiralskiy housing complex in Yekaterinburg, invited investors to give their money to this project instead of opening bank deposits or heading for the stock market as the

The internal rules and policy of Ufa-based OAO Bank Investment Capital, Moscow-based OOO Perviy Cheshsko-Rossiyskiy Bank, and Perm-based Uralskiy Finansoviy Dom, as well as of a number of other banks, have not been approved of by the Federal Financial Market Service of the Russian Federation so as to counteract laundering proceeds from criminal activity as well as terrorist financing.

The net loss of Ural Railway Machine-Building Plant amounted to 22.65 million RUR in the last quarter of 2009 (compared with 68.35 million RUR worth of net loss in the third quarter of the year). The enterprise reports its losses were smaller because the company received greater interest on the money lent in the fourth quarter of 2009 and also due to increased other profits coming from the subsidies meant to compensate for the plant’s investment loan payments in the last quarter of the year.

The Consul General of the French Republic in Yekaterinburg Claude Crouail visited two of Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company UMMC-Agro’s division’s enterprises: Patrushi farm and ZAO Teplichnoye. M. Crouail examined Patrushi’s modern dairy farm that produces over 8 tons of milk per cow every year (Sverdlovsk Region’s best result so far). In Teplichnoye, the official could look at the application of the new, small-capacity vegetable-raising technology. The new technology means the vegetables and plants are grown in special mineral mats rather than in soil; each item is placed in a separate

‘My expert opinion is that it is unwise to invest in Yekaterinburg-based real estate because the local market’s pricing policy is anything but transparent. One should only buy a place to live or to do business there. So I wouldn’t trust the claims made by the developer of Admiralskiy housing complex as to the profitability of investing in this construction project. As a matter of fact, local housing is overpriced and is not likely to grow any more expensive in the next few years. On the other hand, given the shrinking number of buildings under construction, the prices are not likely to go

Ural Federal District’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) carried out inspections of Sverdlovsk Region’s enterprises and found four violations at OAO Pervouralskoye Mine Administration, the spokesperson for Rosprirodnadzor reports. The company received four warrants for inaccurate presentation of environmentally relevant information and one administrative offense protocol. Rosprirodnadzor also detected violations at OAO Malyshevskoye Mine Administration, OAO Nizhniy Tagil Boiler & Radiator Plant, OAO Ural Foil, and ZAO Turinskiy Pulp & Paper Mill.

УрБК, Челябинск, 02.03.2010. Губернатор Челябинской области Петр Сумин подписал распоряжение о создании рабочей группы для разработки прогноза продовольственного баланса в регионе. Как пояснили в пресс-службе губернатора, в рамках федеральной программы по формированию продовольственной безопасности в стране будут составлены индивидуальные прогнозы по каждой области. Региональные программы будут объединены в единую государственную и позволят выяснить, какие территории производят достаточное или избыточное количество продукции, а какие нуждаются в продовольственной поддержке. Так, к примеру,

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin, whose term in office expires in April 2010, asked not to run for Governor again, RIA Novosti refers to United Russia’s press service as reporting. Now United Russia is supposed to propose the candidates for the position of Chelyabinsk Region’s Governor to the President. In fact, Yuri Neelov, Alexander Filipenko, and Eduard Rossel have already left offices as Governors of Yamalo-Nenetskiy Autonomous Region, Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region, and Sverdlovsk Region, respectively.