‘The application committee gathers data and monitors the state of Yekaterinburg’s infrastructure on a regular basis in order to prepare a candidate city’s profile. We use the official data obtained from the publicly open sources and provided by the municipal and the regional authorities,’ EXPO 2020 Application Committee’s Deputy Director-General Alexander Vyakhirev told UrBC. ‘The city’s readiness to host EXPO 2020 is evaluated on the basis of quite a few criteria, including not only the state of the infrastructure but also some other socio-economic indicators and the data on education,

The Metro-Party that Philip Morris Sales & Marketing had planned to hold in Yekaterinburg underground is not going to take place after all. Philip Morris Sales & Marketing confirms that it had meant to have a selective-entry event for adult smokers at Dynamo underground station in Yekaterinburg on April 12, 2012. ‘We have many years’ experience of organizing parties for adult tobacco consumers; these are always held in strict accordance with the rules for coordinating mass-scale events, and all the necessary permissions from the authorities in each particular city are always obtained.

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 12, 2012. The Russian Federation Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina’s decree laid out the list of projects that comply with Article 6 of the Kyoto Protocol in accordance with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This list comprises two projects run by Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). One of the approved projects has to do with production of slab ingots through electric steel smelting, while the other one deals with the launch of new agglomerate production technologies and the new techniques of charging furnaces at

Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service sustained the petition placed with the agency by Rolsy (a freight forwarder based in Yekaterinburg). Rolsy wanted to purchase a 63.16% shareholding in Euro-Asian International Transport & Logistics Center (a Yekaterinburg-based business dealing in development, expert examination, and maintenance of investment projects). The division looked into the petition and found no threats to limiting competition, so it was decided to let Rolsy go ahead with the transaction.

Radio Equipment Plant managed to make Bank Intesa pay them 771,860 RUR (the money classed as the bank’s unjustified enrichment after the lending institution charged the plant a commission for the early repayment of loans). The plant placed a claim with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, demanding that the bank pay them 1.28m RUR; the two parties arrived at a voluntary settlement in the course of the hearing, under which the bank admitted its debt (771,860 RUR). Bank Intesa promised to pay the sum by April 15, 2012.

The Director-General of Uralets Entertainment Center Vyacheslav Potekhin disagrees with the stance taken by Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management and claims the ministry’s actions should be seen as exerting pressure, through administrative levers, upon the center in order to make them sign an agreement, he told UrBC. Now Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management and the Ministry’s Executive Directorate intend to get Uralets to hold a general shareholder meeting, through a court ruling if necessary. The claim to this effect, asking to proclaim the ministry’s

The clash between NPO Avtomatiki, a scientific & production association, and Ural Mechano-Optical Plant (UOMZ) ended in an out-of-court settlement in Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court. Now NPO Avtomatiki went to court with a claim demanding that the defendant pay them 4.58m RUR (the principal and the interest charged for using another party’s funds). In the course of a court hearing, the parties announced they had reached a voluntary settlement and asked the court to confirm it. As a result, UOMZ admitted owing 4.49m RUR to NPO Avtomatiki. The two parties agreed that the defendant would

Ural Builder LLC was unable to get Uraltransmash’s accounts seized: Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court rejected the company’s petition to that effect. Now Ural Builder placed a claim asking to make Uraltransmash make an advance payment (7.31m RUR) and the interest charged for using another party’s funds (150,730 RUR) with the court. At the same time, the plaintiff asked to take provisional measures, that is, to seize the defendant’s funds, including those getting transferred into the defendant’s bank account, or any other property of the defendant. When submitting the petition, the plaintiff

‘Facebook’s buying the Instagram app isn’t based on any market-oriented decisions. I believe Mark Zuckerberg’s reasoning was emotional rather than financial, like a billionaire’s decision to purchase a football club. The overall idea was this: we like this product, we’d like to make an impact on it. This is why one cannot estimate this acquisition in market terms,’ the Managing Partner of Projector Leonid Volkov told UrBC. Now the social network Facebook is buying Instagram, the popular application for creating and editing digital images, for about $1bn. ‘As for the Urals, we are not going to

Karabashmed signed a contract with CIMM Group Co., Ltd, the basic and detailed design business, for the delivery and installation of a set of machinery for the copper enterprise’s new vitriolic shop. Under this contract, the primary technological equipment is to be purchased in Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States. According to Russian Copper Company’s Director for Chemical & Metallurgical Production Reconstruction Mikhail Borisov, the contract is worth $41.04m altogether. ‘The new vitriolic shop will be put up in compliance with the modern technologies and will

Ural Airlines is introducing additional Chita-Moscow flights: starting April 11, 2012, direct flights from Chita to Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport will be operated thrice a week (on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays) using the modern an comfortable A320 liner. These planes are fitted with a full scale business class section with comfortable wide seats, so the flight will seem short. Tickets for the new flight can be booked via the company’s website www.uralairlines.ru and in the booking offices, the airline’s press service reports.

RBC daily reports Bank24.ru (a member of Life Group) was able to prevent the stealing of over 300m RUR from its account via the company’s e-banking system. According to the newspaper, the cyber-criminals tried to use the bank’s accounts to transfer money stolen from the other banks’ customers using the e-banking system; however, Bank24.ru’s special division for incident investigation helped to detain more than ten offenders. The bank explains that their company was chosen by the criminals because Bank24.ru offers a customer-friendly e-banking package. ‘Our incident investigation team

RENOVA Group intends to consolidate a 100% shareholding in Yekaterinburg Non-Ferrous Metals Processing Plant; the latter has already received a proposal to this effect. In fact, RENOVA already owns 71.294% of the plant’s shares. The plant was offered to sell the said securities for 800 RUR apiece. The company has seventy days within the date on which the offer was made to accept it.

Yekaterinburg Municipal Council received the final plan for the repairs and replacement of heating mains in the Urals’ capital from the heat supplier TGK-9; this plan is part of the company’s preparations for the heating season 2012/2013. While the original plan provided for the replacement of 15 km worth of pipelines with the diameters of 500 and 1000mm, the final version covers the repairs and replacement of 18km worth of pipelines. ‘If one compares TGK-9’s last year’s figures and the plans for this year, it’s clear that the volume of network repairs is virtually the same in both cases. I’d

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that its authorized representatives, acting in accordance with Article 76 of the Federal Law On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia), were appointed to seventeen lending institutions (as of April 1, 2012). For one, the representatives are now working at Alfa-Bank, Sberbank of Russia, Nomos-Bank, Khanty-Mansiysky Bank, and a number of other lending institutions.

A work meeting dedicated to Pirelli Russian Cup 2011/2012 was held at Yekaterinburg Central Stadium. The meeting was attended by experts from the Russian Football Union, some of the region’s ministers, members of Yekaterinburg Municipal Council, and representatives of the city and the region’s law enforcement authorities, and Central Stadium and Ural Football Club members. The members of the Russian Football Union presented their requirements for holding the Cup’s final game. Security was one of the important points on the agenda. The ticketing program, events for football fans, volunteer

The clash around Yekaterinburg EXPO exhibition center keeps unfolding. According to people from the construction company Rusgrad, the clash resulted in an actual takeover attempt at the construction site today. ‘Six men blocked the entrance to the construction site when the representatives of our DG tried to get there this morning. The men said they were employed with a private security firm but refused to produce any documents to prove it. The builders, who couldn’t enter the site, called the police; the arrival of the latter was obviously disconcerting to the men, but they did not leave,’

Starting April 17, Ural Airlines is offering a flight to a new destination: from Saint Petersburg to Yerevan and back. The flights will be operated every Tuesday using a comfortable A 321. The cheapest tickets are available for ?155 (one-way, excluding the fees). These can already be booked via the company’s website www.uralairlines.com and in the booking offices, the airline’s press service reports. Ural Airlines also operates flights to the Armenian capital that depart from Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Samara. These flights are operated on Thursdays, Tuesdays, and Mondays,

Svyatogor has been placed on the list of companies owing more than 1m RUR to the Russian Federation’s budget. This information (good as of March 15, 2012) was provided by Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration court started looking into the clash between Uralmedstroy and Castorama RUS. This happened on the eve of Castorama’s opening in Yekaterinburg. The hypermarket in Shefskaya St, whose area comes to more than 10,000 sq m, is to start operating on April 21, 2012. According to the files of the case, the developer insists on being paid 5.16m RUR by Castorama RUS. The preliminary court hearing has been set for May 4, 2012.