UrBC, Moscow, July 19, 2011. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service took legal action against Investtorgbank: the bank is suspected of violating Article 14 of the Federal Competition Protection Act (unfair competition). The FAS had received a citizen’s complaint regarding Investtorgbank’s refusal to let him top up his Perspective deposit, even though the deposit agreement provided for the opportunity to top up the account. The Service detected that the bank had not been accepting any deposit top-ups since May 2010; this involved Perspective deposits with the deposit period of 732 and 1,097

UrBC, Moscow, July 19, 2011. Nordea Bank came up with a performance report for the first half of 2011. The bank’s capital rose by 7.6% against the first half of 2010 and reached 29.59bn RUR; the bank’s assets increased by 25.4% and came to 198.63bn RUR. In the second quarter of the year, the bank’s consolidated lending portfolio amounted to 157.15bn RUR, which was 7.7% more than in the second quarter of 2010. Nordea Bank’s net profit came to 1.36bn RUR. The company explains a decrease in profit (compared with a year earlier) has to do with a number of factors: a drop in interest rates and in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 19, 2011. Yekaterinburg Leninsky District Court supported the requirement of Oktyabrsky district’s Public Prosecutor regarding the dismantling of a 3 by 6 meters advertisement on the front side of Sony Center store at 84 Malyshev St in Yekaterinburg, and the dismantling of a 0.8 by 2 meters advertising tower on the lawn next to the store. The dismantling has to be done by the entrepreneur who had the advertisements installed. The prosecutor took action following an inspection by the City Council Municipal Property Management Department; it was alleged that the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 18, 2011. A meeting in support of holding the 2018 world football championship in Yekaterinburg will take place in the city on July 29, 2011. Yekaterinburg is actually on the list of Russian cities that will be among those hosting the World Cup, but the final decision has not been made yet. In case Yekaterinburg does get to host the event, this will be the first time in history the championship is held in two parts of the world at the same time, that is, in Europe and Asia. Also, if Yekaterinburg hosts the World Cup 2018, the locals will get to see some of the

A federal digital broadcast network will probably be launched in Sverdlovsk Region in 2013. Such was an agreement signed by Sverdlovsk Region Government and Russian TV & Radio Network (RTRS) at INNOPROM 2011 today. In 2011-2013, over 140 digital TV facilities will be launched in the area. This project requires 1.47bn RUR worth of investments. The money will be directed to system project development, procurement of permissions, constriction of a digital TV broadcasting network, and provision of land, power networks, and engineering infrastructure. As a result, 99% of Sverdlovsk Region’s

468,700 sq m of housing was commissioned in Sverdlovsk Region in January-June 2011, which was 4% less than in January-June 2010, SverdlovskStat reports. 5,257 apartments have been built this year so far, although the figure was greater by 525 apartments in January-June 2010. The local dwellers had 248,600 sq m of housing built with their own or borrowed money, which is 10.9% more than a year earlier. 53% of the total figure was private houses (against 45.9% in January-June 2010).

SKB-Bank presented four innovational products at the international industrial forum INNOPROM 2011 in Yekaterinburg. The products are aimed at offering the bank’s customers maximum speediness of service and top reliability of transactions. For one, the bank presented its own money order service known as Begom (‘On the run’), which allows one to process a money order online without the need to set up a bank account. The Pay-on-Your-Way system makes it possible for thousands of customers to pay their housing, phone, and Internet bills as well as tuition fees and road police fines in the bank’s

Sverdlovsk Region is going to get an additional 460m RUR from the federal budget within the framework of education system upgrades program. The agreement to this extent was signed by Russia’s Education Ministry and Sverdlovsk Region Government. The upgrades program also provides for a 30% increase in teachers’ salaries using the regional budgetary funds. The increase will affect those teaching at pre-schools, schools and extracurricular educational establishments. ‘After these obligations have already been met, the Russian Federation is giving Sverdlovsk Region 460m RUR to be invested in the

The Russian legislature is lagging behind the innovations that could have been implemented and yielded profit a long time ago, Siemens Complex Transport Solutions Director Dr. Rolf Epstein said in the course of a discussion on Russia’s megaprojects as the essential drivers of demand for innovations at the exhibition INNOPROM 2011 in Yekaterinburg. ‘The existing technical regulations, standards and orders must be modified as soon as possible,’ he pointed out; otherwise, he said, the introduction of innovations would come to a halt. Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President

UrBC, Istanbul, Turkey, July 15, 2011. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) completed the construction of its metallurgical facility MMK-Atakas in Turkey. The project was finished off with the launch of a continuous hot-dip galvanizing unit on the production premises in Istanbul. MMK announced the launch of the continuous hot-dip galvanizing unit on the production premises in Istanbul, Turkey, quite recently. The launch of the unit signifies the completion of MMK-Atakas on two Turkish sites, in Iskenderun and in Istanbul. The production facility in Iskenderun was completed in the spring

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, July 15, 2011. ‘The launch of the new Mill 2000 is a truly important event not only for Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works but for the entire country’s metallurgical industry as well. It is also a significant thing for the Russian automobile industry, because our localizing goal here could not possibly be achieved without the availability of the automobile body sheets you are starting to produce,’ Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) employees. Vladimir Putin actually attended the launching ceremony of

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, July 15, 2011. The first section of the cold-roll Mill 2000 was launched at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) today. The launching ceremony was attended by the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, MMK PR Department reports. The facility, capable of manufacturing 2 million tons of goods a year, will mainly deal in the production of high quality cold-rolled and zinc-coated rolled products for external and internal car parts. This produce is also expected to be popular with the home appliances manufacturers as well as with the building industry.

Sverdlovsk Region Government and the German company Siemens signed a strategic partnership agreement on the first day of INNOPROM 2011, the international exhibition and forum. The paper was signed by the region’s Governor Alexander Misharin and President Siemens AG in Russia & Central Asia Dietrich Meller, the Governor’s press officer reports. The agreement defines the main fields where Siemens will cooperate with the region’s enterprises and organizations. For one, this includes transportation, energy-saving, the energy sector, IT, and medical technologies. Besides, the parties will

On June 1, 2011, Russia’s Central Customs considerably raised the minimum cost of table wine imported to Russia from a number of European countries, which naturally meant the suppliers now have to spend more on the customs duty payments, RBC daily reports. The customs duty comes to 20% of the purchase price, and there exists the so-called control level of the customs price: this is the lowest price at which, in the customs officials’ opinion, wine is available abroad. The new rules imposed by the Central Excise Customs might result in inexpensive imported wines growing costlier. Suppliers

The Ural International Exhibition & Forum INNOPROM 2011 opened in Yekaterinburg yesterday. The agenda of the first day of the exhibition covered the official opening ceremony in the course of a plenary session, entitled ‘Supply and Demand on the Russian Innovations Market: A Roadmap’. The session was followed by a press conference of the Strategic Initiatives Agency and the signing of an agreement between Sverdlovsk Region Government and Siemens AG. Then, a round table discussion on the Agency’s projects and their selection and promotion was organized at the forum. There are about one

The Chinese truck manufacturer FAW is planning to have its one- to five-ton trucks produced in Russia, RBC daily reports. We are now looking for a partner to set up the manufacture,’ FAW representative said, although the names of the parties the company is negotiating with were not disclosed. RBC daily’s sources says FAW has been holding talks with the Urals-based factory AMUR, among other companies. A source close to AMUR confirmed that the negotiations indeed were in progress. If the two parties come to an agreement, the Ural plant will be making up to 20,000 trucks a year. The Chinese

The Ural branch of Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) that currently deals in all the trading transactions started operating in Yekaterinburg recently. The subsidiary opened because two Russian bourses, MICEX and RTS, are merging. Prior to this, Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Markets Service annulled the stock trading license of MICEX-Ural Regional Stock Center.

A married couple from Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, was accused of fraud recently. The couple, who were the official Ford dealers in Russia, received about 40m RUR from sixty-five customers so that they could buy the automobiles, but the money was spent ad libitum, the press officer of Ural Federal District division of the General Prosecutor’s Office reports. In 2008 and 2009, one of the suspects was a Director of Magtechnocenter, Ford’s official representative in Russia, while his spouse was the company’s CFO. A portion of the money was invested in putting up a building for a joint stock

Ural Airlines flew 996,112 passengers in the first half of 2011, which was 32% more than in the first half of 2010. 361,422 people flew internationally, which was 33.5% better than in January-June 2010, 180,615 people used the company’s flights destined for places around the CIS (this was 33.5% more than in the first half of 2010), and 454,075 passengers used domestic flights (this was 24% more than in January-June 2010), the company’s press service reports. In June 2011, Ural Airlines’ passenger traffic reached 279,211 people, which was 43% more than in June 2010. This figure included

Bank Koltso Urala keeps improving its business customer services in the field of foreign trade. The bank’s subsidiaries in Kemerovo, Orenburg, Shadrinsk, and Uchaly now provide their customers with a bank guarantee to ensure the payment of customs duties and taxes. The bank’s business customers department’s employees report bank guarantees became possible due to the fact that the bank is now in the Register of organizations that are allowed to act as guarantors to the customs authorities. This service only used to be available at the bank’s head office; now that the subsidiaries can offer