The British company Rolls-Royce Motor Cars reports record-breaking sales for the last year: over 3,500 automobiles were sold in 2011, which was 31% more than in 2010. According to the BBC, for the first time ever China bought more such cars than any other country last year, leaving behind North America. Sales grew fastest in Germany and Russia, where the number of sold automobiles doubled against 2010, Interfax reports. However, the car manufacturer does not disclose the information on how many automobiles were actually sold in each particular country.

The U.S.-based leasing company ILFC demanded that Vladivostok Avia should stop using three Airbus 320 and two Airbus 330 planes: a note to this extent was sent to the company’s Director-General Dmitri Tischuk as well as to Aeroflot on December 29, 2011, Vedomosti reports. The note says the air carrier has about $5m worth of unpaid leasing debts. Vladivostok Avia responded by announcing that the airline would meet its obligations in full and would operate all the prospective flights in accordance with the winter timetable for 2011/2012, the airline’s PR Director Alexander Alekseyev reports.

The state-run Sverdlovsk Region Government Car Park is planning to conduct an electronic auction for the purchase of five Toyota Camrys or their equivalents on January 26, 2012. The opening (and the maximum) price of the purchase contract is 7.5m RUR; this information is available via the government purchases website. The requirements for the characteristics of the cars include the following: the maximum speed must come to at least 210 kph and the automobiles must reach a speed of 100 kph within 7.1 seconds. The warranty must come to at least 36 months or 100,000 km worth of kilometrage. The

Order No. 62-11-1757/pz-i issued by Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service on December 28, 2011 halts the issue of Sverdlovsk Region-based Ural University Complex’s ordinary registered uncertified shares.

An economic mission from Saxony is planning to visit Innoprom exhibition in Yekaterinburg in the summer of 2012. The news was reported to Sverdlovsk Region’s Minister for International & Foreign Economic Relations Alexander Kharlov in a letter from Sven Morlok, Saxony State Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor, and Transport. Morlok observes that the economic cooperation between the state of Saxony and Sverdlovsk Region has noticeably moved forward. He feels that the German delegation taking part in Innoprom 2011 had an important part to play in this; so did a technological forum on the

Under the Russian Federation President’s Decree NR 1640 dated December 16, 2011, the Director-General of Ural Airlines Sergey Skuratov was awarded with the Order of Friendship. Russia’s Transport Minister Igor Levitin congratulated both the company and Sergey Skuratov on the event, the airline’s press service reports. ‘I cordially congratulate you on receiving the state award and wish you a happy New Year and a merry Christmas! I wish you great health, happiness, and further success in working for the good of Russia,’ his message states.

Plane A320 belonging to AirArabia that was flying from Sharjah to Yekaterinburg was unable to land in Koltsovo Airport due to a blizzard, the airport’s call center informed Interfax-Ural. According to the center, the plane was redirected to an alternate field in Chelyabinsk. Koltsovo Airport’s website states that seven more flights are now delayed, including those from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Dubai. Five more planes are waiting to depart.

According to Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Economics Evgeny Sofrygin, the promotion of the region’s long-term rating from BB to BB+ by Standard & Poor’s points to Sverdlovsk Region’s financial stability. ‘The promotion of the region’s long-term rating had to do with an improved liquidity situation as well as with meeting the target figures for budget revenues,’ the Minister feels. ‘We believe that potential investors will see this promotion as a sort of green light to arrive in this Region, and this is definitely a good thing,’ he notes.

MMK METIZ (a member of MMK Group) is now producing more steel bars with the help of innovational nano-technologies. According to MMK Group’s PR Department, such bars are used to make a new generation of railway sleepers. The conventional railway sleepers come with a set of forty-four wire strings with the diameter of 3mm each, all made of high-carbon steel. Now that the railway transport is speedier and has more loads to deal with, a new technology is implemented that uses only four pivots with the diameter of 9.6mm to 10mm; these pivots are stronger and sturdier than the older structure.

The BRIC countries have to be taken off the list of investment goals: the time for this group’s intensive growth is now over, Goldman Sachs warns. BRIC will come to be replaced by a set of eleven most densely populated developing countries, Gazeta.Ru reports. ‘We have witnessed the peak in BRIC’s growth. Over the last decade, the mere idea of BRIC has been enough to attract investments. It is much more difficult now to believe that just having the faith in their future growth is enough to get these investments,’ says Goldman Sachs economist Dominic Wilson in his review on the BRIC countries

Workers of Tyumen Customs and officers of Tyumen Region division of the Internal Affairs Department have confiscated over 4,600 units of counterfeit goods since the beginning of 2011, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. Now throughout the year, the customs and the police officers coordinated weekly joint searches aimed at finding counterfeit products on the territory of Tyumen Region in Ishim, Tobolsk, and Tyumen. Among the confiscated goods were fake Adidas, Reebok, Sochi 2014, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel items as well as toys such as Bakugan and Moxie girls and DVDs.

UTair Airlines’ Boeing flying from Novosibirsk to Moscow had to perform an emergency landing at Roschino Airport in Tyumen. ‘The plane performed an emergency landing because of a flight attendant who was not feeling well,’ Tyumen Public Prosecution Authorities for Transportation’s Chief Assistant Natalya Bondarenko told Interfax-Ural on Wednesday. There were 126 passengers and six crew members on board the plane; no one was hurt. This is actually not the first time UTair’s airplanes get involved in the incidents of such sort: in the fall, the air carrier’s planes had to perform a whole series

The hotel chain that currently runs three hotels in Russia (Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya, Hilton Garden Inn Perm, and DoubleTree by Hilton Novosibirsk) and the Hilton Baku Hotel in Azerbaijan signed four new agreements and a multi-project deal on the development of the chain on the Russian market. Russia will get twenty-four Hilton Worldwide hotels altogether; Yekaterinburg was not on the list, Hoteldeluxes.com refers to the company’s press office as saying. Most of these prospective hotels will be put up in Moscow: Hilton Garden Inn Moscow New Riga, DoubleTree by Hilton Moscow Leningradsky

The international rating agency Standard & Poor’s credit rating service promoted Sverdlovsk Region’s long-term rating from BB to BB+, with Stable rating outlook. ‘The rating was promoted due to the region’s financial performance indicators, which proved above our expectations and were caused by the increased budget revenues and some well-balanced control of the expenditure,’ the agency reports. The region’s solvency is also supported by its small debts, high liquidity indicators, and moderate financial performance indicators. ‘The Stable rating outlook indicates that we believe Sverdlovsk

The extraordinary general meeting of Koltsovo Airport’s stockholders that was supposed to have taken place in absentia was declared invalid. According to the company’s reports, the reason for this decision was the fact that there was no quorum for holding the meeting.

Next year, McDonald’s is planning to open up to fifty new restaurants in Russia, Retail.ru reports. The number of outlets operated by the company is expected to reach 310 before the end of the year, and this figure will increase by another 15% in 2012 when forty to fifty new places are launched. McDonald’s intends to keep expanding geographically, with restaurants to be opened in cities with population over a million people and in the regions’ capitals; in addition, more places will be opened in Moscow and Moscow Region, Saint Petersburg, the Urals, and the Volga Region.

The Profile magazine carried a rating of the largest banks in terms of net asset volume. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was given the 46th position on the list: its assets amounted to 93.13bn RUR on November 1, 2011. Last year, the bank scored the 47th position in the rating. As a matter of fact, the UBRD was also given good ratings among Russia’s most profitable banks at the end of November. According to RBC.Rating, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was the country’s 28th largest bank in terms of profit volume (this reached 1.8bn RUR on October 1, 2011, which

A large sum of a customer’s money went missing from Ural, Alfa-Bank’s Yekaterinburg office, the victim himself informed UrBC. ‘I decided to place 25,000 RUR into my Alfa-Bank card account on December 23. I used the cash-in ATM located in their Ural office right in the center of the city. Unfortunately, the money was not transferred into my account; nor did the ATM give me my money back,’ the bank’s customer told UrBC. According to the customer, the office clerks did admit that the trouble had most likely been caused by an ATM glitch and suggested that he should submit an official complaint.

The firefighters are now pouring water onto the scene of the fire at Tagansky Ryad market place and dismantling the burned-down structures there. Six firefighting vehicles and twenty-four people are involved in the proceedings. The causes of the fire are being investigated by the firefighting experts and inquest authorities, Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Ministry of Emergencies reports. The fire at a warehouse at 1 Minometchikov St. was reported at 2:24 PM on December 25, 2011. Plenty of combustible material at the warehouse and a strong wind caused the fire to spread quickly. The

Ural Airlines’ fleet of vehicles now numbers as many as twenty-two Airbus planes. The company’s ninth Airbus A321 arrived at Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg yesterday. This was yet another stage in the airline’s fleet upgrade program. The new plane was bought on operational lease terms in Dublin, Ireland. Like the previous A321 planes, this one has 220 economy class seats. The air carrier intends to use it mostly for chartered flights. Ural Airlines also intends to upgrade its fleet of vehicles further by buying four more airplanes in 2012 and to operate thirty Airbus planes by 2015. The