Head of the Federal Consumer Rights Protection and Human Well-Being Service (Rospotrebnadzor) Gennady Onischenko imposed a ban on importing to or selling in Russia any fresh or root vegetables (except for this year’s potatoes), tuber crops, or fresh berries that were produced within the EU. The ban will hold until a special provision on the official’s part. Sverdlovsk Region’s divisions of Rospotrebnadzor, as well as the customs bodies and the regional Ministry for Trade, Food, and Services have been notified of the limitations; so have the food manufacturers, supermarkets, and catering

Ural Airlines and Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch are perhaps the first two companies in Russia to make bank cards acceptable on board, the airline’s press service reports. Ural Airlines’ passengers can now pay for their on-board purchase, tickets the Air Express train to Moscow airports, and flight certificates right in the air using their bankcard. Starting June 7, 2011, all of the airline’s flights operated from Yekaterinburg will have electronic Visa (Infinite, Platinum, Gold, Business, Classic, and Electron) and Master Card (World Signia, Platinum, Gold, Business, Standard, Electronic)

The shortage of castings is now keenly felt by both the manufacturers of new railway carriages and the carriage-repairing companies that handle the carriages of our company or of our daughter enterprises. Russian Railways Trading House was, in fact, set up to provide supplies for our daughter enterprises on the one hand and to sell what we have on offer on the other. So, this comes naturally to us in this respect. When we realized we were faced with some enormous shortage, I insisted on our people finding out where the castings could be bought. But we did not want the last year’s scenario

A month before the start of the exhibition INNOPROM 2011, Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for International and Foreign Economic Relations came up with the lists of the international participants in the event. So far, over twenty countries’ representatives have expressed their interest in taking part in the exhibition. For one, the companies and enterprises based in Austria, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Poland, and the USA have applied as exponents. In addition, delegations from Germany, Great Britain, Iran, Moldova, South African countries, and Switzerland are

Builders have started working on the canopies that will protect the spectators’ stands at Yekaterinburg Central Stadium. The canopy will cover 30% of the seats in East and West Stands. The area of one canopy comes to 2,360 sq m. Builders are also busy with the finishing work in the sections below and outside the stands.

Uralelectrotyazhmash-Uralgidromash and Uraltyazhtrubstroy have been fined for violating the existing stock market regulations. Each company will have to pay a 500,000-ruble fine. This decision was made by the Ural Federal District division of Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service.

Tyumen Region and Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region-Yugra were featured among Russia’s Top3 most investor-attractive regions. The first place was given to Krasnodar Territory. Sverdlovsk Region was not among the Top20 regions in this respect. These data were provided by Russia’s Ministry for Regional Development in a report on the socioeconomic, financial, and banking situation in the Russian Federation constituencies in January-April 2011.

In the course of an upcoming annual general meeting, the shareholders of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport are going to consider a deal regarding the property worth over 50% of the company assets’ book value. The announcement about the AGM taking place on June 30, 2011 has been published in Oblastnaya Gazeta. The company reports that the list of the stockholders who have the right to insist on the shares buyout gets compiled on the basis of the data available from the company’s stockholder register as of May 25, 2011. The buyout is handled at the price of 16,550 RUR per 1 (one) ordinary

Ten counterfeit Louis Vuitton bags were confiscated by Tyumen Customs and Tyumen Region division of the Internal Affairs Department’s consumer market offenses section in a single Tyumen store alone. All in all, over fifty fake Louis Vuitton items (dresses, belts, wallets, purses, jewellery and bags) have been confiscated by the authorities since the beginning of 2011. The genuine items come at between 18,000 RUR and 180,000 RUR on average, whereas on the street markets and in the shops of Tyumen Louis Vuitton fakes are available for between 1,000 RUR to 8,000 RUR,’ Tyumen Customs

This year, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is planning to direct over 1.6bn RUR on the environmental protection purposes. Among the most significant air protection initiatives are the ongoing reconstruction of the sulphur-collecting units in the sintering plant section, the completion of the reconstruction process involving the aspiration system of the areas located under the bunkers, with the installation of an electric filter at Blast Furnace 10, the completion of the aspiration systems at the metallurgical slime processing units, and the construction of air-protecting facilities

The Industrial Urals-The Polar Urals project cannot possibly be implemented without the Russian Government’s support,’ Sverdlovsk Region’s Economics Minister Evgeniy Sofrygin said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg recently. This is an important and a necessary project, but it’s also very complicated. The project requires a lot of investments that neither Yekaterinburg budget nor that of Sverdlovsk Region can possibly afford single-handedly. We need federal money,’ Mr. Sofrygin stressed.

Klyuchevsk Ferrous Alloys Works decided not to declare any dividend for the year 2010. The decision was made by the company’s shareholders in the course of the annual general meeting in the village of Dvurechensk.

Renaissance Securities (Cyprus) Limited increased its share in Concern Kalina, a Russian cosmetics manufacturer, from 12.09% to 15.51%. At the same time, Prego Holdings Limited reduced its share portfolio from 45.41% down to 30.66%, whereas Kalina Finance’s share in the company went up from 5.44% to 18.56%.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is not processing the claim placed by the region’s prosecution authorities; the authorities insist that the agreement on Sverdlovsk Region Government car park buying a Mercedes Benz S500 for the Governor be declared invalid, the court’s website states. The thing is, the claim, filled by the deputy prosecutor, does not meet all the requirments of Articles of 125 and 126 of Russia’s Arbitration Procedural Code. Now Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities want Sverdlovsk Region State Order Department, Sverdlovsk Region Government car park, and Stern

Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport is going to become one of the airports that will be offered a 50% discount on the transfer of passengers from the Far East. The proposal was considered at a meeting devoted to the Mid-Urals transportation infrastructure development; Russia’s Transport Minister Igor Levitin took part in the meeting, in fact. We agreed that this measure should be introduced next year. We feel this will make passenger travel much cheaper and will facilitate the development of an aviation hub in Yekaterinburg,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin said.

Former deputy of Sverdlovsk Region Duma Dmitri Vershinin was appointed the new head of the Russian Red Cross Sverdlovsk Region division. He succeeded Olga Kharitonova, whose powers expired on May 25, 2011. I have been aware of the Red Cross activities for a long time now; we used to work on a number of projects together when I was a Duma deputy. It was Olga Kharitonova who recommended that I should become the new chairman of the regional division. We are now busy handing over the authority, revising the documents, and making decisions on the development of the division,’ Mr. Vershinin told

The deputies of Russia’s State Duma agreed on the wording of an inquiry to head of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service Igor Artemiev. The MPs are worried about the lack of transparency within the payment systems that are currently operating in Russia; the systems do not disclose the particulars of their rate policies or the terms of their partnership with the banks. It has been suggested that the Federal Antimonopoly Service should look into the activity of the payment systems in question, RBC daily reports. According to the enquiry, there is now a number of payment systems in Russia that

Yekaterinburg Municipal Bank is not going to pay any dividends for the year 2010; this was decided upon at the annual general meeting that took place in Yekaterinburg recently. The bank reports the decision was made because the bank’s losses amounted to 194.36m RUR last year.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) carried out the first tests of its cold-roll Mill 2000 (a continuous etching line combined with a tandem mill) first section. According to MMK PR Department, the tests have shown that some positive performance indicators were observed in terms of speed modes and the thickness parameters. At the moment, the things being tested are the performance of the emulsion system and of the automated control system. The assembly of the technological machinery relating to the first section of Mill 2000 has already been completed. The technique of grinding backup

The merger of Yekaterinburggaz and GAZEKS might get competed as soon as January 2012, so that a single gas-distributing company EGRO will be created as a result, GAZEKS Managing Director and Yekaterinburggaz DG Denis Pasler announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. This year, Sverdlovsk Region’s two main natural gas distributing networks are working under a single technological policy. This was made possible due to IES being allowed to handle the operation management of Yekaterinburggaz since December 2010,’ Pasler explained.