Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service took criminal action against the telecommunications providers MTS and Vympelcom, accusing the two companies of a price collusion related to their sales of iPhones. Now Apple reports that its wholesale prices have not changed, nor has the company offered any advice on the price of smartphones in Russia or controlled the pricing policy of either Vympelcom or MTS. Nevertheless, most points of sale offered these mobile phones at identical prices everywhere. The FAS believes this stems from the fact that the two importers secretly agreed on giving up

Yekaterinburg police and customs officers stopped the sales of counterfeit mobile phones in the city. The damage done to Nokia Corporation’s intellectual property is estimated at over 66m RUR, Ural Customs Administration’s press service reports. Now the officers inspected one of the sales outlets in a Yekaterinburg-based well-known shopping mall, confiscating 153 Vertu Ferrari A-00258 Special Edition phones, 81 Vertu Ferrari A-000369 Limited Edition phones, and 9 Vertu Boucheron phones. The files of the conducted inspection contain the proof of the sales being illegitimate and the data on the

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) underwent external audit by Ford Motor Company a short while ago; the audit was focused on the company’s automobile body sheets production. Nearly all the departments were involved in the audit procedures. Ford Motor Company representatives visited MMK’s oxygen converter shop, the coatings shop, and sheet-rolling shops No. 5, 10, and 11 that are involved in the automobile body sheet production. A presentation on MMK produce’s potential and the company’s production possibilities was also made. Besides, Ford’s experts got acquainted with the particulars

Sverdlovsk Region Government agreed on the results of tenders where the applicants competed for state guarantees for a number of Yekaterinburg-based projects. For one, a billion-ruble state guarantee will be offered for the subway construction in Yekaterinburg, and another 1.75bn RUR will be directed to the development of the new Academic district’s infrastructure development.

The recent negative developments in the global economy that will probably bring it down to the level of the year 2008 are to affect the Russian banks’ capital adequacy badly: the figure could go well below 10% against the 16.7% in the middle of 2011. This, in its turn, might lead to a demotion of Moody’s ratings assigned to Russia’s banks, RIA Novosti reports. This message was delivered by Moody’s press service.

Most of exported items (that is, over 40% of the total export volume) that Yekaterinburg Customs must handle are still metals and metal goods; chemical produce makes up 42% of all the export shipments; machinery, equipment, and vehicles make up 5.5%, while timber and pulp products make up 2.5% of export shipments. As for the import of goods around Yekaterinburg Customs area, this came to $1.6bn, with 86.6% of imported goods’ worth coming from the countries of the far abroad ($1.bn) and 13.4% of imported goods’ worth coming from the CIS ($213.3m). The physical volume of imported cargo amounted

Ural Airlines will no longer be using the Tu 154M airplanes in the future. This plane will operate its last flight to Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport on October 16, 2011, the airline’s press service reports. Tu 154 aircraft were traditionally the basis of Sverdlovsk Region’s united fleet of vehicles that was later to become Ural Airlines. The first such plane was purchased in 1974. In 1995, the airline bought the first improved Tu 154M. The company kept using four Tu 154M planes over the last few years; these planes were fitted with the most advanced equipment and allowed to operate in

Russia’s copper export plummeted by 73.5% in January-August 2011 compared with January-August 2010; the figure amounted to 83,200 tons, Russia’s Federal Customs Service’s press service reports. The physical volume of nickel export decreased by 41.6% and reached 89,300 tons over the given period. The value of copper shipments declined from $2.15bn in January-August 2010 down to $770.2m a year later; that of nickel plunged from $3.218bn down to $2,29bn. Remarkably, nearly all of copper and nickel shipments were directed to the countries of the far abroad this year.

Jet fuel prices keep going up in Russia. Twenty airports in the country are going to launch price increases ranging between 1.5% and 9% over the next few days. All in all, the price of jet fuel has gone up by nearly 40% since the beginning of the year. This has to do with the fuel shortage, as the market is estimated to be lacking at least 10% to 15% of the amount needed. If RosReserve provided the 180,000 tons of fuel promised by the government, this could solve the problem, but such a decision has not been made yet, Kommersant reports. As for Moscow-based airports, jet fuel prices increased

Ural Airlines keeps improving its online services, so now any visitor to the air carrier’s website can make a free call to the customer support center online and get answers to any questions related to the company’s performance, the airline’s press service reports. The new service makes it possible to contact the company’s information center right from one’s computer using the Call button. All one needs is headphones/speakers and a microphone. A user can press the Call button on any page of Ural Airlines’ website, upon which an automatic connection with the call center employee will be

Avianova stopped operating due to financial and economic problems, Interfax reports. Starting 12:01 AM Moscow time on October 10, 2011, the company swill stop operating due to financial and economic troubles,’ the airline reported earlier. The air carrier announced on Friday that Avianova had rendered its services to 11,926 passengers on October 3-7, 2011; the figure covers all the destinations available to the company. The initial target figure for the period was 27,000 passengers.

An independent expert Evgeny Shkolov was recently elected BOD Chairman of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation. Shkolov thus replaced Deputy Industry & Trade Minister Denis Manturov, the Kremlin website reports. Prior to this new appointment, Evgeny Shkolov was Deputy Minister of the Interior. He was asked to resign after a certification audit. The Internal Affairs Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev explained that some of his deputies, including Shkolov, would get new appointments after the completion of the audit, RIA Novosti says.

Russian Copper Company received a nominee diploma at MINEX Russia 2011, the 7th Mining and Exploration forum and expo. The award is mainly aimed at promoting competition spirit and advertising the companies’ best achievements in the development of Russia’s mineral resource base. Russian Copper Company was nominated as The Investor of the Year, since it is one of the market’s leading companies that makes a lot of investments in the branch. The company was awarded for its large-scale investment in the purchase and development of Mikheevsky and Tominsky ore mining & processing enterprises

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 7, 2011. The amount of air pollutants emitted by Sverdlovsk Region-based industrial enterprises went up in 2010 compared with a year earlier. For one, the chemical companies and those involved in the production of rubber and plastic goods increased their share of emissions by 3.1%, the share of other non-metal mineral products manufacturers soared by 56.5%, the share of cast iron, ferrous alloys, steel, hot- and cold-rolled sheets manufacturers went up by 6.9%, the share of the automobile and machinery makers rose by 15.3%. These data are available from the public

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 7, 2011. Oleg Chupakhin, a research supervisor from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Ural branch’s Organic Synthesis Institute feels very pessimistic about the future of the Russian science within the walls of Ural Federal University. The academician says the university is simply unable to process all the money directed to science, for one, UFU keeps laying off its scientists on a large scale. ‘So, they set up Ural Federal University and promised enormous funding. However, no one can guarantee that things will work out there. Our Ural State Technical University

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 7, 2011. Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo International Airport rendered its services to 2.54m passengers in the three quarters of 2011, which was 23% better than in the three quarters of 2010. The international passenger traffic rose by 17%, the number of people on domestic flights increased by 23%, the number of those flying around the CIS jumped by 54.6%. 15,060 flight departures were processed, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 30.8%. ‘Most of Koltsovo’s passengers are those on domestic flights, including the flights operated within the framework of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 7, 2011. Under Order No. 62-11-1308/pz-i dated October 6, 2011 of Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service Ural Federal District Division the issue of Sverdlovsk-Region based EVRAZ Kachkanarsky Ore Mining & Processing Plant’s ordinary registered paperless shares was halted.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 7, 2011. The plans of the French hypermarket Auchan to set up more stores in Yekaterinburg are still unclear. Former Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced as early as 2007 that a hypermarket would soon be opened in every district of Yekaterinburg. The area of each of the seven hypermarkets was supposed to have come to 10,000 to 15,000 sq m. ‘Sverdlovsk Region has already obtained the permission of Auchan representatives to put up this number of stores,’ Rossel said at the time. ‘Given the way things stand, I just ask you to trust us. As soon as

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 6, 2011. The reconstruction of Yekaterinburg-based MEGA shopping mall will last for three years, at least, MEGA-Yekaterinburg CEO Lilia Nenasheva announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg today. ‘The initial reconstruction stages will remain unheeded by the customers. We’ll start with the infrastructure and technical systems upgrades and then we’ll move on to the commercial components,’ she explained. ‘When the renovations are complete, the mall will look different both on the inside and on the outside. Its colors and interior will be changed. For one, at

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 6, 2011. ChTPZ Group representatives are to take part in the 19th Kazakhstan International Oil & Gaz Exhibition (KIOGE) 2011 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on October 5-8, 2011. About 450 O & G and metallurgical companies from twenty-five different countries are going to join the event; KIOGE 2011 is aimed at presenting the enterprises’ production facilities and sharing advanced technological experience. ChTPZ cooperates closely with Kazakh industrial enterprises and joins KIOGE on a yearly basis.