Delegates from Byelorussia, France, Germany, and Turkey have already confirmed their intention to take part in Innoprom 2012 this summer, the exhibition’s coordinating committee reports. Innoprom 2012 will be held in the International Exhibition Center Yekaterinburg EXPO in Yekaterinburg on July 12-15, 2012. The event is expected to be supported by the Russian Federation Government; the coordinating committee is actually chaired by Deputy Head of Government Igor Sechin. In 2011, over four hundred companies from thirty different countries took part in the exhibition. This year, the number of

Some of Yekaterinburg-based Adidas stores are closing down for the time being. The company explains this has to do with renovations at the points of sale. UrBC was informed that the closing stores are the ones located in Greenwich and Park House Shopping Centers. Adidas told UrBC that these stores are currently being remodeled and that some new equipment is being introduced there as well. The stores are expected to reopen on February 5, 2012.

Ural Airlines came up with a special price offer for male passengers because of the upcoming Defender of the Fatherland Day (February 23d): they can buy tickets for Samara-Yerevan flight with a 15% discount through the end of February, the airline’s press service reports. The offer is valid for flights operated between January 30 and February 27, 2012. With this discount, the cheapest one-way tickets will be available for ?155 (excluding fees and charges). Flights from Samara to the Armenian capital city are operated every Monday.

The area of the site that will house World Universal Fair EXPO 2020 in case Yekaterinburg gets selected as the hosting city for the event might come to over 400 hectares, the Director-General of EXPO 2020 Application Committee Eric Bugulov said in an interview to Interfax-Ural. ‘We hope to be able to develop one of the largest sites in the history of EXPO – with the area of over 400 hectares – and to invite more than two hundred countries to take part in the exhibition,’ he said. Bugulov explains that Yekaterinburg’s comparative advantage, in contrast to the other candidates for hosting the

Claims against the construction company Atomstroycomplex Corporation were placed with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court recently, with Yekaterinburg Municipal Council as the plaintiff. Counts come to 917,920 RUR, 286,630, and 49,140 RUR. The city council had actually laid multi-million claims against the company before; these claims are to be considered by arbitration court in late January and early February 2012. According to the court’s files, one of the claims has to do with unpaid rent, another one – with a debt resulting from the use of a land allotment.

Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) came up with a production and operation performance report for the last quarter of 2011 and the entire year. In 2011, TMK shipped 4,232,000 tons of steel pipes to its customers, which exceeded the figures for 2010 by 6.6%. ‘The results of the company’s performance in 2011 proved as good as our expectations. Our grwoth was mainly due to increased shipments of more hi-tech weldless goods,’ TMK reports. On the whole, given the existing agreements with the customers and provided that the current market trends hold, the company expects its shipments volume to go up

The 42nd World Economic Forum will be held in Davos on January 25-29, 2012. In the course of the event, a presentation on Yekaterinburg as the candidate city for hosting the International Exhibition EXPO 2020 will be made. Mayor of Yekaterinburg and Chairman of Yekaterinburg Municipal Council Evgeny Porunov will join the Russian delegation that will be presenting the Urals’ capital to the global community. A big pavilion called EXPO 2020 Yekaterinburg, with the area of 400 sq m, was built in Davos specially for the occasion. The pavilion will serve as a hosting place for business

The rating agency Standard & Poor's upgraded the Russian cosmetics manufacturer and distributor Concern Kalina’s national scale credit rating from ruA+ to ruAА+ and took the company’s rating off its CreditWatch list (the rating was placed there on October 18, 2010, with Positive rating outlook). The rating was then called off at the issuer’s request, the agency reports. ‘Concern Kalina’s rating resulted from our analysis of the company’s own solvency and the presumed support from Unilever PLC (A+/Stable/A-1). This rating also takes into account Unilever’s status as Kalina’s primary

Andrei & Evgeniy Zubitsky announced that they no longer have any control over Ufaleynickel’s shares. The enterprise reports this happened because they do not have a stake in the issuer’s business anymore. According to Ufaleynickel’s official data, Andrei & Evgeniy Zubitsky used to have a 32.49% and a 30.01% stake in the company, respectively. Meanwhile, it was announced last week that HIGHMETALS KDS became the new owner of Ufaleynickel, Rezhnickel, and Serov nickel deposit.

The Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Nicaragua is to be opened in Yekaterinburg on January 27, 2012. According to the press service of Sverdlovsk Region Union of Industrialists & Entrepreneurs, the opening ceremony will be attended by Chairman of the Nicaraguan department of Russian-Nicaraguan Trade, Economic, Scientific & Technical Cooperation Committee and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister of the Republic of Nicaragua Manuel Coronel. The agenda of the event covers a business forum and meetings with representatives of the Urals’ business community. The companies arriving in the

The International Investment Consulting Center awarded Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) the Grand-Prix of Bona Fide Supplier 2011, an All-Russian contest, and placed the company on the Federal Bona Fide Suppliers Register, MMK PR Department reports. This yearly contest’s key aims are to support the government’s policy on providing a competitive market economy and to develop the Russian companies whose business activities fit with the state-determined supplying standards. Recent certification audits confirmed that MMK can produce goods of the needed quality within contract-specified

Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch keeps voicing its disagreement to the actions taken by a liquidation committee in respect of five outlets of Magnum strong drinks chain (the asset of Oleg Fleganov’s Omega Group). According to the data available from Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, the bank’s claims were placed on December 30, 2011. Sberbank demands that the actions of Magnum Strong Drinks Market 2, Magnum 3, Magnum 6. Magnum 7, and Magnum 9 liquidation committee be declared illegitimate. The bank also insists that the tax service re-registers these companies with the Unified State

Czech Connect Airlines a.s reports that the company’s Board of Directors placed an insolvency application with Ostrava regional court on January 18, 2012. The air carrier used to operate flights from Yekaterinburg to Karlsbad. ‘Czech Connect Airlines a.s. founders and management are now doing their best to find a way of keeping the company and minimize the damage to customers, employees, and business partners,’ the airline reports. Due to the above-mentioned factors, the company halted its business activity for the period between January 21, 2012 and March 24, 2012 (the end of wintertime

Yekaterinburg Municipal Council laid million-ruble claims against the construction company Atomstroycomplex. The claims are to be processed by Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court in late January and early February 2012. According to the court’s files, one of the claims is related to an overdue rent payment that comes to 37.09m RUR plus 22.77m RUR worth of penalties. The court hearing was set for February 9, 2012. Another claim concerns an overdue payment for the use of a land allotment that amounts to 1.78m RUR. This claim will be heard in court on January 25, 2012. On January 30, 2012, the

Russian sales of passenger cars might rise by 4% and amount to 2.6m cars, PwC reports. ‘We expect the sales dynamics to slow down in the future, so the total number of cars sold in Russia this year will probably not exceed 2.6m units, and if negative factors prevail, sales might drop to 2.3m,’ the agency says. The company’s report states that last year’s sales of passenger cars reached 2.5m units. Analysts and PwC observe that the passenger cars market rose by 40% in quantitative respect in 2011, which was possible due to growing consumer confidence, the state subsidies program, and car loans

The State Labor Inspectorate is now investigating a multi-casualty lethal accident at Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Plant (Evraz KGOK). At about 8:50 AM on January 17, 2012, three track servicemen were hit by a diesel locomotive going down freight line 54 of Karyernaya Station on the premise of Evraz KGOK. Doctors arriving at the scene of the accident stated that one of the victims was dead; the second one, who was heavily injured, was transferred to Central Municipal Hospital only to die there after a while, whereas the third victim was in no need of hospitalization. An ad hoc

The director of Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Plant Construction Management was ordered by Sverdlovsk Region division of State Labor Inspectorate to eliminate the violations detected in the course of a scheduled inspection. It was revealed in the course of this scheduled, multi-faceted inspection of the company by a state labor inspector that twenty-five workplaces in the company are qualified as Class 3.1 for working conditions (namely, harmful working conditions), but the employer does not provide the workers with the benefits and compensations they are entitled to. Then, the company’s car

Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government and the region’s Minister for Industry & Science Alexander Petrov held a meeting with Alexander Timofeyev, the representative of the local Rezhnickel, Ufaleynickel, and Serov nickel deposit’s new proprietor HIGHMETALS KDS. ‘The plant is going through a rough patch at the moment. Thanks to the efforts made by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin and Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Evgeny Kuivashev, we managed to prevent the upcoming layoffs and the closing down of the plant. The

The first payments on the 5bn-ruble loan taken out to put up Yekaterinburg EXPO Exhibition Center must be made in April 2012. As the building itself has not paid off yet, it is possible that the center’s stockholder, the Mid-Urals Development Corporation, will have to have its debt restructured through a new loan scheme, Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Public Property Management Vitaly Nedelsky announced at a recent press conference. ‘Paying off the loan is the duty of the stockholders and not of the state. This includes the Mid-Urals Development Corporation that owns an 82% stake in the

Seven people were elected as members of Concern Kalina’s new Board of Directors. The cosmetics manufacturer reports these are Sanjiv Kakkar, Alexei Minakov, Alexander Petrov, Nikolay Geller, Mark Wessel Remko, Theodore Kitsos, and SvetlanaTsareva. The previously appointed BOD members had to resign before the end of their term. Only Alexander Petrov and Nikolay Geller managed to get re-elected; former BOD Chairman Timur Goryaev did not become a BOD member.