According to the Central Bank of Russia, the Russian residents’ demand for the U.S. dollars rose by nearly two times in October compared with September 2011. Russians bought over $1bn worth of the U.S. dollars altogether, while the net demand for the euro decreased by over two and a half times, RIA Novosti refers to the Central Bank’s report as stating. This means that the demand for the euro came to $200m in October 2011, Bank Koltso Urala reports. Experts point out that this trend has been brought about by the instability in the Eurozone: the trust in the euro has been undermined, while the

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ) Board of Directors is to consider the company’s strategic development program for 2012-2016 in the course of a meeting that is expected to take place on December 14, 2011. The agenda of the meeting also covers issues related to the development of the company’s main strategic projects, the company’s annual consolidated budget for the year 2012, and the BOD action plan for the next year.

Ural Airlines will keep on transferring passengers from the military sector in 2012. The company was placed on the list of Russia’s five largest air carriers that were approved by the Defense Ministry to transfer the military, the airline’s press office reports. ‘The fact that the airline was placed on the MoD’s list proves the great quality of the services rendered by the company as well as the airline’s reliability and safety,’ the office says.

The United Nations Organization stopped cooperating with two Russian airlines on the ground that some of the companies’ employees are suspected to be involved in legal offenses of sexual nature, Reuter reports. An anonymous representative of the United Nations Department of Peace-Keeping Operations (DPKO) said to reporters off the record that the offense in question was really grave, but no further explanations were given. The DPKO representative Kieran Dwyer did confirm that the charges involved a few employees of UTair Airlines and Nefteyugansk United Airline Transportation Company that

The rolled section department of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) shipped 1,128,000 tons of hot-rolled products to customers in January-September 2011, which was nearly 50% more than in January-September 2010. ‘The increase in output was most considerable as far as Mill370 was concerned: its output rose by over two times compared with the nine months of 2010. An increase this big was made possible due to the growing consumption on the part of the building industry and thanks to the growing production output at MMK METIZ, MMK Group’s metal goods plant and the largest consumer of our

Ural Airlines is planning to get four Airbus planes in 2012, says the company’s CFO Kirill Skuratov. The company currently operates twenty-one Airbus aircraft and will add another Airbus to its fleet of vehicles on December 25. In February and November 2012, the air carrier will get two more Airbus planes leased from the Bank of Scotland. What is more, Ural Airlines is planning to buy two more aircraft next spring. ‘Our goal for mid-range haul airplanes is to get about thirty of them. We’ll have twenty-four to twenty-six planes next year and four more in 2013; from then on, we’ll concentrate

Ural Airlines was the first Russian airline to join Citibank’s bonus program recently. According to ZAO Citibank’s BOD member and Loans Director Mikhail Berner, Ural Airlines was invited to become the bank’s partner because of its business reputation, rapid growth, and market success. ‘It is a great honor for our company to become a member in a project like this,’ says the airline’s CFO Kirill Skuratov.

Acting Governor Anatoly Gredin chaired a meeting with Okuma Europe GmbH’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Director-General Karl-Heinz Dreyer and President and Managing Director Kaoru Aoyama and with Director-General of UMK Pumori-SIZ Alexander Balandin at Sverdlovsk Region Government House. The meeting resulted in Sverdlovsk Region Government, Germany-based Okuma Europe GmbH, Japan-based Okuma corporation, and Yekaterinburg-based UMK Pumori-SIZ signing a protocol of intent regarding the construction of a metal-cutters manufacturing plant. According to Alexander Balandin, the

Somewhere around January 10, 2012, Unilever is to come up with an offer to buy out the remaining portion of Concern Kalina’s shares. The 82% shareholding in the Russian cosmetics manufacturing company comes at the price of about 17.4bn RUR, which is approximately 700m RUR more than what was originally declared. This increase is due to a number of changes in what regards the actual cost of the transaction. Kalina’s estimated value has remained the same, namely, about 25.9bn RUR, Unilever’s press service reports. Unilever expects that the deadline for accepting the offer will come to about

The construction of the Radisson Hotel in Yekaterinburg will only begin in the summer of 2012, the Director-General of Atomstroycomplex Valery Ananyev said at a press conference today. ‘We had some difficulties getting all the permissions for the project, so some changes had to be made. The design work is expected to be completed next April, and this is when the construction will start,’ he explained. The hotel’s estimated value comes to about 6bn RUR. Radisson SAS will be located at the intersection of Malyshev St and Krasnoarmeyskaya St. The developer announced earlier that they could

Doctors say Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin is feeling better. According to the Governor’s PR Department, diagnostic examinations were carried out by the medical experts in a university clinic in Germany, and a number of rehabilitation procedures was prescribed for the executive, including the restoration of bone tissue in the fractures along his jaw line. The Governor’s wife Inna Misharina, who accompanied the patient on his trip to Germany, says the Governor felt good during the flight and was taken off the artificial lung ventilation system yesterday.

Ural Airlines’ first scheduled Chelyabinsk-Moscow-Chelyabinsk flight was operated on December 5, 2011. The fact that there were a lot of passengers even on this ‘maiden voyage’ proves that the service will be popular with the residents of Chelyabinsk: over 50% of seats were taken, Ural Airlines’ press service reports. Ural Airlines will now be operating scheduled flights from Chelyabinsk to Moscow and back in accordance with the following timetable: U6 610 Moscow-Chelyabinsk: departure time is 10:05 PM, arrival time is 02:15 AM (every day except for Saturday); U6 609 Chelyabinsk-Moscow:

25% plus one share of the Yekaterinburg-based Grand Avenue Hotel are now put up to auction, Vecherny Yekaterinburg reports. The number of shares offered for privatization comes to 416,834.

The customs and the police officers of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region Yugra conducted five inspections of retail stores in Surgut, Nefteyugansk, and Kogalym in November 2011 in order to prevent sales of pirated products. As a result, 125 counterfeit items were confiscated, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. The confiscated items comprised ‘Adidas’ sportswear and footwear as well as ‘Hugo Boss’ colognes. All the suspicious-looking items were withdrawn for an expert examination. The results of this examination will determine whether administrative or criminal action

The international chemical and pharmaceutical concern Bayer AG is interested in setting up a joint scientific research venture with some Russian partners, with one of Skolkovo’s first residents Ural Pharmaceutical Center being the most likely candidate. This was something discussed at the meeting of Vice Premier and Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Administration Pavel Korolev with the German concern’s representatives. One of Bayer representatives said their technology experts are already working at Ural Pharmaceutical Cluster’s facilities; they can look into the production and come up

The Urals-based banks are coming up with the preliminary reports for their performance in the year 2011. According to Bank Koltso Urala’s Retail Business Department experts, the bank’s term deposit portfolio currently exceeds 11bn RUR, the bank’s press service reports. This figure has actually increased by over 3bn RUR since the beginning of the year, while the number of customers’ deposits rose by a few times; the private individuals’ term deposits portfolio went up by 5.98%, or 680m RUR, in November alone. Up to four hundred customers open deposits at the bank every day.

The auction aimed at selling the assets of Avto-Land that took place on November 29, 2011 had to be declared invalid because no bids had been submitted. Among the assets put up to auction were tires, spare parts for Jaguar, Ford, Mazda, and Volvo makes, and tools, materials, and equipment for car repair. The opening bid for the lot was set at 8.82m RUR. The applications for taking part in the new auction can be submitted starting December 5, 2011.

The French chain store Auchan is planning to open its classic hypermarkets in six Russian cities in 2012, Auchan-Russia’s Director-General Jean-Pierre Germaine told reporters. According to Kommersant, Yekaterinburg is not on the list. ‘We are planning to open six classic hypermarkets and we also keep working on our current projects that haven’t been completed yet. An average Auchan City store reaches about 150,000 locals,’ Germaine said. He explained that stores would be opened in Nizhniy Novgorod, Ryazan, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, Volgograd, and Rostov-on-Don.

Kommersant came up with a rating of Russian banks that shows an increase in these banks’ financial performance figures compared with the beginning of the year. The newspaper’s research took into account the data provided by 953 Russian banks. The Urals-based VUZ Bank was featured among the country’s top 100 banks in terms of loans volume and among the top 200 banks in terms of deposit portfolio volume and undistributed profit volume. In terms of retail loans, the bank was given the 88th position in the rating. The bank’s private individuals lending portfolio came to 5.118bn RUR on October 1,

According to head of Sverdlovsk Region Clinical Hospital 1 Intensive Care Department Alexander Levit, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s stay in the intensive care unit is over: all the necessary measures needed to stabilize his health have been taken. No life-threatening complications have been diagnosed, and he is actually improving. ‘The Governor’s further convalescence depends on the organization of the effective rehabilitation period. Among the options that medical men offered, Alexander Misharin’s relatives chose one of specialized trauma clinics in Germany. This establishment is a global