Microsoft Corporation announced it was about to launch a one-way licensing program for Russian non-profit organizations and NGOs. According to the company’s press service, the new one-sided license will act automatically on behalf of Microsoft and cover the software already installed on the computers of non-profit and non-governmental organizations as well as on those of some small-sized independent media. The license will be valid through January 1, 2012. ‘Microsoft has been donating software to Russia through its InfoDonor program since 2009. The program allows non-profit organizations and

Ural Airlines is going to introduce additional flights from Yekaterinburg to Norilsk, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, and Yerevan as a special New Year offer. This is why the company’s airplanes will operate flights to these cities on December 28, 30, and 31 in addition to the regular weekly ones. Ural Airlines’ customers need to travel much more during the holiday season and the New Year break, as this time of the year is great for long-distance traveling and meeting relatives and friends in other cities. So, the air carrier decided to launch a number of extra flights. All these flights are

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service received a petition from the American company PepsiCo regarding the possible acquisition of Wimm Bill Dann Foods, a Russian dairy foods manufacturer, RIA Novosti quotes FAS’s deputy head Andrei Tsyganov as reporting. The news of the upcoming transaction was announced on December 2, 2010. The company will probably be sold for $5.8bn. PepsiCo intends to buy a 66% shareholding in Wimm Bill Dann for $3.8bn first and will launch an offer for the acquisition of the remaining shares later. Tsyganov also said the transaction was to be considered by a governmental

The Federal Financial Markets Service’s Ural Federal District division ordered on December 14, 2010 through a decree 62-10-1801/pz-i that the issue of Sverdlovsk Region-based Piastrella Trading House’s common registered paperless shares must be halted.

Russian air carriers started selling tickets for the nonexistent flights to France, Rostourism reports. The agency warns the Russian tour operators against cooperating with such airlines that don’t actually have any permission to operate international chartered flights. According to Kommersant, the airlines in question are Orenburg Airlines and Moscovia that are allegedly acting on behalf of a tour operator Spectrum. Earlier on, Rostourism refused to allow Orenburg Airlines, Moscovia, Vladivostok Avia, Kavmidvodyavia, and Sky Express operate chartered flights to Grenoble and Chambery. The

The international rating agency gave Chelyabinsk Region BB+ long-term credit rating on the international scale and ruAA- on the national scale, with Stable rating outlook, which signifies the agency’s idea of the region’s conservative debt-management and money reserve policies’ potential. Standard & Poor's representatives actually came to Chelyabinsk earlier to meet Governor Mikhail Yurevitch. As it happens, out of twenty-two Russian federal constituencies which have been rated by the agency, Khanty-Mansiysky and Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Regions are the only territories whose

The Federal Air Transport Agency came up with a list of airlines whose scheduled and chartered flights were delayed in November 2010. According to the data provided by the agency, the list features OAO Aeroflot Russian Airlines. The carrier in question operated 8,399 flights in November 2010, 209 (2%) of which were delayed. Transaero operated 3,618 flights in November, 159 (4%) of which were delayed. Utair operated 4,751 flights, 173 (4%) of which were delayed. Vladivostok Avia operated 899 flights, of which 65 were delayed, and Avianova operated 890 flights, of which 71 (8%) were delayed.

OAO Ural Airlines came up with a performance report for November and the eleven months of 2010 recently. The company served 1,678,999 passengers in January-November 2010, which was 21% better than a year earlier. The airline has reached such a turnover for the first time since it was set up. 636,942 passengers used the company’s international flights, 784,211 people flew around Russia, and 257,846 people flew to and from the CIS member states. As for the month of November, the passengers turnover went up as well and reached 115,430 passengers, which was 9% better than a year earlier. The

OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and GMCS announced the launch of a project that aims to introduce a production and economic planning system at MMK; the system is to be based on JDA Software Group, Inc.-designed JDA® Supply Chain Planner solution. ‘MMK’s new project is targeted at enhancing the efficiency of our sales and production planning. The innovations provided by the project will improve both our order portfolio and the range of products in accordance with our current and prospective production and logistics options,’ the company reports. A JDA Supply Chain Planner-based

The import of goods within the Yekaterinburg Customs area amounted to $1.6bn in January-November 2010, with 79.3% of these imports’ worth falling on the countries of the far abroad and the remaining 20.7% falling on the CIS member states. All in all, the import increased by 17.9% in money terms in eleven months of 2010 compared with a year earlier. This increase was brought about by the growth of the imported goods’ overall physical volume, even though the contractual prices actually dropped. The physical volume of the goods imported within the Yekaterinburg Customs area reached 704,500 tons

Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin visited the construction site of Yekaterinburg’s newest Academic district. Now Academic is not only Russia’s but also Europe’s largest city development project to date. Head of the regional Cabinet and General Director of ZAO Renova-StroyGroup Akademicheskoye Alexei Vorobyov tried to estimate how effectively the regional government’s provisions on the creation of engineering and social infrastructure in the new district are implemented and checked out the construction site of a new quarter. The region’s authorities feel fully prepared to

‘I haven’t made any profit from Vysotsky,’ a Yekaterinburg-based entrepreneur Andrei Gavrilovsky told the Delovoy Kvartal magazine. The opening of the skyscraper in question has been postponed at least three times; the latest deadline has been set for the middle of the year 2011. ‘In fact, I have only been spending money so far. All the money I get from selling the office space is directed into the construction. Then, my entire business is now focused on this project. I deal in a number of activities, in fact: Antey Business Center is making good money through rent at the moment, then I also

Russian Railways Public Company is planning to sign an agreement with the Canadian concern Bombardier today that will signify the sale of a shareholding in Elteza (United Electro-technical Plants) to the latter, RZhD-Partner, the railway company’s information portal, reports. ‘We intend to sign the agreement with Bombardier regarding the sale of a shareholding in Elteza (the Canadian company won the right to buy this in the course of a tender) and we are going to introduce new technologies to create advanced alarm, lockdown, and security systems on the railroads,’ says President of Russian

‘The bankruptcy claim that has been placed against InnoGarant recently has nothing to do with the situation around Capital Tours. The application was actually placed by one of the insurance company’s customer, not a tourist. To the best of my knowledge, her claims have either been settled out of court or are just about to be settled. We keep in touch with InnoGarant’s management,’ Capital Tours’ General Director Inna Beltyukova told TourBusiness, a web portal. InnoGarant, the insurer of Capital Tours, was faced with a bankruptcy claim a few days ago. In case the company is actually declared

Russia’s association of tour operators declared it cannot agree with the stance taken by Rospotrebnadzor: the consumer rights watchdog insists that the travel companies must give a 100% refund to tourists who decided to cancel their trips to Egypt, ITAR TASS reports. Gennady Onischenko said Rospotrebnadzor would help the customers get their money back from the tour operators who are unwilling to reimburse the travelers who do not want to go Egypt because of the risk of a shark attack. The association agrees the agency’s demand makes sense, but meeting it could lead to even greater losses and

A workers’ strike at Finland’s largest air carrier came to an end today after a new three-year agreement had been signed, ITAR TASS reports. The strike, which started on November 30, 2010, was caused by the disagreements regarding the number of days off after a transcontinental flight between the flight attendants’ trade unions and the company’s management. Between 160 and 200 domestic and international flights had to be cancelled daily due to the strike. Some of the flights that were called off were actually bound for Yekaterinburg. Experts estimate Finnair’s losses at about ?2m a day, ITAR

Sverdlovsk Region’s presentation for the potential investors was coordinated on the premises of Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s permanent representation under the Russian Federation President in Moscow. The presentation was organized by the region’s Economics Ministry. Sverdlovsk Region was represented by First Deputy Head of Government and Economics Minister Mikhail Maksimov, First Deputy Economics Minister Vitaly Nedelny, and Deputy Minister Viktor Dolzhenko. The government officials presented the Mid-Urals’ potential to the heads of Siemens, SKF, Lafarge SA, MAN B&W DIESEL, Veolia

The authorized representatives of Russia’s Central Bank have been appointed in twenty-one Russian banks, the Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports. The Central Bank still keeps a close eye on such Urals-based banks as OAO Bank24.ru, OAO Bank Severnaya Kazna, and OAO Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank. In addition, the bank’s representatives are still operating in Bank VTB, OAO Alfa-Bank, Sberbank of Russia, OAO Bank of Moscow, ZAO Bank Russkiy Standard, OAO Rosselkhozbank, and some others.

The shoe manufacturing company Ecco that is currently working on the introduction of a chain store network in Russia is planning on expanding its retail sales. Ecco Russia Development Department’s Director Dmitry Chuikov says the company will probably set up ten new stores in cities whose population comes to at least one million people and in the neighboring towns next year. This means that in 2011, the new mono-brand shops could open in Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Ufa, and Tyumen, among others. Ecco is going to focus on the stores located within large shopping malls. According to Molly.ru, a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 9, 2010. Lufthansa’s flight LH 1480 from Frankfurt to Yekaterinburg was cancelled today, Koltsovo Airport’s interactive announcement board states. The plane was to have landed in Yekaterinburg at 6:45 AM, but the arrival was first put off till 9:50 AM and then called off altogether. This naturally means that flight LH 1481 from Yekaterinburg to Frankfurt was also cancelled; the aircraft was supposed to have taken off in Koltsovo first at 9:10 AM and then and 10:30 AM. The airline’s press service reports the flight was called off because of bad weather in