Metallurgical works of Asha held the traditional distributor meeting on Marc h13, 2006. Among the participants were executives of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Pyatigorsk, Samara, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk and Asha dealing in consumer goods and gardening tools. The meeting resulted in summing up the achievements for 2005 and discussing cooperation projects. The other points on the agenda included the launch of new types of consumer goods by the works of Asha, namely, steel doors; the first set of doors is to be shipped in March. The new equipment could also be used for making gun- and other safes,

Mundybash subsidiary of Evraz ore maker is currently giving overhaul to its № 1 ball crusher, replacing the setting, the feeder, the driving gear, the classifier, and the load-unload gutters. The subsidiary has a total of five crushers, each one repaired once every 15 months to prolong its operation period and prevent breakdowns. The ball crushers grind the primary concentrates in order to extract as much iron from them as possible and minimize losses.

The court of Asha granted the petition of the municipal public prosecution authorities and chose preventive punishment for acting GD of metal products plant of Minyarsk Sergey Narudinov, the spokesperson for municipal public prosecution authorities said to UrBC representative. The criminal lawsuit concerning the arrears of wages for over two months was brought to action in December 2005 as the arrears had come to over 3 million RUR, there were delays in the payments of taxes and duties, and, to make matters worse, the management tried to hide the fact of receiving money from profits and

CreditUralBank JSC has paid equity and preference share dividends for 2005; the total amount of payments came to 208,840,000 RUR. The corresponding decision was made at the annual shareholder meeting on March 2, 2006. The total amount of dividends paid comprised 186,070,000 RUR for equities and 22,770,000 RUR for preference shares. The dividend per share came to .23 RUR.

‘We are hoping to make 30 billion RUR in sales in 2006 due to more road-building equipment, tractors and special machines being sold this year,’ GD of Uralvagonzavod Federal State Unitary Enterprise Nikolay Malykh announced at the press conference. Mr Malykh believes this increase will allow the plant to keep up with its converting and reconstruction projects and launch new types of competitive products as well as invest in social welfare (for example, by finishing the construction of Malachite health resort on the coast of the Black Sea and scheming houses for the company employees). ‘More

AgroPromTechnika JSC of Chelyabinsk is to hold general meeting on April 12, 2006. The points on the agenda include summing up the company’s financial success in 2005, the issue of profits and loss distribution, amendments to the company’s Charter. The shareholders will also have to elect the Board of Directors, the inspection committee and the auditor for 2006.

Ural Chemical Company JSC allotted 500,000 bonds with a par value of 1,000 RUR each on the stock market; the total value of bonds comprised 500 million RUR. Bonds are offered publicly; the serial number is 4-02-31401-D of December 8, 2006.

Specialists of TroitskEnergoRemont CJSC, the power plant’s general contractor, started the overhaul of power-generating unit № 9 last week. The repairs are to include elimination of breeching leakage, replacement of armoring and beaters of hammer mills, and fixing the feed turbine pump 9A. Also, the defects of the electric filter and examination of № 5 low-pressure heater are to be paid attention to. All this is being done within the framework of the regular-basis overhauls, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

N.A. Semikhatov Scientific Production Association of Yekaterinburg (aka Automatica) is to host an instrument-making technological park meant for producing particularly sophisticated circuit boards. This has been made possible owing to the decision of Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Vladimir Molchanov, directors of regional instrument-making enterprises, and representatives of the defense industry. According to the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Governor, a special committee of executives from the Ministry of Industry, Power Engineering and Science, defense enterprises, and

‘We are currently having nearly 30,000 square meters of production area and 500 square meters of offices rented, with the total area available for rent coming to 100,000 square meters (30,000 meters of warehouses and 10,000 meters of administrative buildings among them), Deputy GD of Stankomash JSC Vyacheslav Golub said to UrBC representative. ‘The plant now hosts furniture- and instrument- making enterprises, lumber dealers, food facilities, and companies dealing in blank metallurgical production and sales and purchases,’ Mr Golub said. According to Mr Golub, the issue of offering 35,000

Ural Chemical Company JSC allotted 500,000 bonds with a par value of 1,000 RUR each on the stock market; the total value of bonds comprised 500 million RUR. Bonds are offered publicly; the serial number is 4-02-31401-D of December 8, 2006.

The company produced 695,830,000 RUR worth of goods in the first two months of 2006, which is 24.6% more than a year earlier. 231 engineer vehicles with the total value of 400,901,000 RUR, 40 tractors, 2 pipelaying cranes, and 184 bulldozers were produced. The sales turnover came to 781,691,000 RUR (an increase of 31.2% compared to a year before); the sales included those of 224 engineering vehicles (444,306,000 RUR), tractor parts (266,061,000 RUR), the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

Standard & Poor’s announced the increase in the national scale long-term credit rating for Kalina Concern JSC (from ruBBB+ to ruА-) owing to the company’s stable business dynamics and the fairly low financial risks. ‘This increase reflects the company’s ability to build up their business activity and keep key positions in the core segments of the dynamic and competitive health and beauty products market. Besides, despite the quick growth, Kalina manages to improve its profitability indicators and maintain the financial risks at a fairly low level,’ said the credits analyst for Standard

Zlatoustovsky Metallurgichesky Zavod JSC (Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk Region) is now a recognized supplier of electric vacuum-treated steel (specification B1-A) onto the North-American market. This information was reported in the beginning of March 2006 by Arwin Meritor Company. The latter is among the main US producers of heavy-duty trucks. Arwin Meritor is ready to buy 500 tonnes of rolled metal from Zlatoustovsky Metallurgichesky Zavod monthly. In 2005, Zlatoustovsky Metallurgichesky Zavod produced a pilot batch of axial billets made of AISI 1050 steel. The batch size was

‘A great number of our flights to various destinations are unprofitable, and they always have been. Today, people blame us for the absence of new aircrafts. This is a real problem for the bulk of Russian air-carriers, and, within the next few years, the situation will turn even worse due to the deficient domestic production of aircrafts and high import duties,’ the spokesperson for Ural Airlines PR-department said to UrBC representative. According to the PR-department of Ural Airlines, the company has successfully abided by its existing aircraft fleet up to now. It was quite enough to provide

Director of German Weinig Gruppe Alois Eismannberger visited the annual Weinig NIS representatives meeting in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region. It’s the first time this meeting takes place in the Ural capital. ‘Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government and Minister for Industry, Power Engineering and Science Vladimir Molchanov met Mr Eismannberger on March 9, 2006 to discuss the prospects of introducing high-level timber processing technologies in the Ural works,’ reports the spokesperson for the Ministry. ‘Weinig Gruppe set up its Sverdlovsk Region subsidiary in 1995, and Weinig Ural

GD of UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics Evgeniy Potapov joined Russian Public Relations Association as an individual member. Russian Public Relations Association was set up in 1991 as an open civil NGO; it was founded by the USSR Journalists Union, the Advertisers Association, the Journalists Fund of Russian Soviet Republic, the UNO Secretariat (PR Department, NYC), Russian Soviet Republic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Russian Commodity Exchange, Moscow Commodity Exchange, RosVneshTorg, VneshTorgReklama, the USSR Embassy in the US, USSR Ministry of Foreign

The total budget of the company’s projected investments comprises $1.1 billion RUR throughout 2006-2010. The better part of money ($750 million) is to be given to the mining segment, the rest is to go to the metallurgical segment. According to the company’s spokesperson, the metallurgical projects are targeted at the efficiency rise while keeping up with the current output; they will mainly be fulfilled at Metallurgical Works of Chelyabinsk (Mechel JSC). For instance, the plant will have to complete the construction of the extra continuous casting devices (it’ll cost nearly $50 million) in

Khrustalevskiye Zavody Ltd., the winery of Lesnoy, Sverdlovsk Region, resumed the production of strong drinks on March 2, 2006, reports the company’s spokesperson. According to Director Alexei Alexeev, the winery has already bought 165,000 new-format excise duty stamps and is thus able to go back to work. ‘The winery is expecting to produce 400,000 bottles a month, that is, 20 bottles daily,’ Mr Alexeev said.

According to the spokesperson for Ufaleynickel JSC, Chelyabinsk Region, the fourth converter has recently been renovated at the melting shop of the plant. Some vessel lining and replacement of metal parts such as coffer-dams have greatly improved the converter’s capacity.