The company’s existing environmental program provided for thirty-five ‘green’ measures targeted at reducing and preventing the company’s environmental impact. Ten more measures will be carried onto this year. Among the company’s most important environmental efforts are the construction of the new close cycle water supply system; a unit of cleaning facilities at CC machine 6 and out-of-furnace steel treatment unit; the construction of a gas purification and a gas exhaust tract at CC machine 6; the reclamation of a slime pit of the company’s ore mining and processing unit; the construction of

Starting March 1, 2011, Ural Airlines is going to celebrate the arrival of spring with a special offer on tickets for flights departing from Moscow. Tickets with a 20% discount are available from March 1, 2011 to March 15, 2011. The special prices are offered on the following domestic flights: Moscow-Irkutsk (5,900 RUR), Moscow-Novosibirsk (4,900 RUR), Moscow-Novokuznetsk (7,000 RUR), Moscow-Chita (12,000 RUR), Moscow-Yekaterinburg (3,500 RUR). These are the prices used in the booking offices. If you book online, the airline’s website www.uralairlines.com features special online rates. The

Bank Société Générale Vostok’s Yekaterinburg branch has been issuing increasingly fewer loans to businesses over the last two years. The total loan output, as far as large and medium enterprises are concerned, declined from 6.8bn RUR in 2008 down to 3.4bn RUR in 2010. The bank explains its main efforts were focused on bad debts, while the actual loan issuance process only began in the second half of 2010, after the annual report for 2009 had been published. ‘Last year was mainly the one of debt amortization. We had to set our problem assets straight. Some of our borrowers are still giving us

The arrival of a SkyExpress airplane to Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg was called off today. Flight EX303 was supposed to have arrived from Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport at 8:30 PM today. The arrival was actually cancelled. No reason or explanation has been given on the airport’s interactive announcement board. This means the return flight EX304 (original departure time 9:45 PM) was called off as well.

A criminal suit might follow the recent tug crushing into Lufthansa-owned airplane in Perm airport, Ural public prosecution authorities for transportation report. While Airbus A321-200 was getting ready to take off in Perm’s Bolshoye Savino Airport on February 26, 2011, a tug crushed into it, damaging the metallic fixtures that attached the tug to the plane. There were forty-three passengers and seven crew members aboard the plane. An investigative team and Perm’s public prosecutor for transportation Sergey Zabelov inspected the scene of the accident shortly afterwards. It was revealed that

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service approved of handing a big holding of OAO Polymetall’s shares over to a newly created foreign holding. The holding is supposed to get its shares listed at London Stock Exchange in the future, Polymetall’s press service reports. Polymetall deals in geological survey work in four Russian provinces: Magadan and Sverdlovsk Regions, Khabarovsk Territory and Chukotka, as well as in Kazakhstan. As for Sverdlovsk Region, gold-mining enterprises operate in Krasnoturinsk, at Vorontsovskoye gold mine.

In order to extend its destinations network even further and to meet its customers’ demands, Ural Airlines is to offer more Yekaterinburg-Rome flights starting March 23, 2011. The destination proved quite popular last year (the total passenger traffic for Yekaterinburg-Rome and Rome-Yekaterinburg flights came to 5,995 people in 2010), with the demand increasing by the hour. So, one can now fly to Rome twice a week, any Sunday or Wednesday. More flights to Italy’s capital became possible thanks to the company’s long-term fleet upgrade program – Ural Airlines will get four new Airbus planes

Customers have been placing increasingly more complaints about food prices and price tags accuracy at such Yekaterinburg-based food chains as Kupets, Monetka, Picnic, Perekrestok, Kirovsky, and Megamart with Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog), the division’s press officer reports. Following the inspections by the division’s officials, the executives responsible for the violation of consumers’ rights had to face administrative prosecution, while the heads of the enterprises were ordered to remove the violations.

Very few of our buildings that are put up in some densely populated environment escape some sort of sabotage by the locals. Sadly, this is a very common thing to happen. We understand that a construction site nearby is not the most pleasant thing in the world, and it obviously touches upon the interests of everyone around,’ Valery Ananyev, the General Director of Atomstroycomplex, one of Yekaterinburg’s leading developers, said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The same kind of thing always happens: broken headlights, smashed machinery, workers who get beaten. The developers are losing

Head of Yekaterinburg Evgeniy Porunov and Head of Yekaterinburg City Council Alexander Yakob met Vietnam’s Consul General Le Quy Quynh, Yekaterinburg Municipal Duma’s press service reports. The consul is about to resign from his office in Yekaterinburg after about three and a half years. While he was in office, Hanoi Shopping Center was opened in the city and a scheduled Yekaterinburg-Hanoi flight was introduced. What is more, much more citizens of Vietnam now live and work in Yekaterinburg as expats. Evgeniy Porunov and Alexander Yakob thanked the consul for his efforts and said he made a

The representatives of the world-famous Japanese Mitsui Corporation arrived at Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (ChTPZ Group) on a business visit in order to look at the plant’s facilities and hold talks about the two parties’ prospective cooperation. The Japanese delegates visited the company’s finishing center and Iron Ozone 32, a steel-smelting facility, as well as a few tube-rolling departments. The representatives of Japan’s oldest trading firm looked into the process of pipe manufacturing, from making ingots at Iron Ozone 32 to producing half-finished articles at the tube-rolling department

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service annulled Zapsibcombank’s license allowing the company to handle stock exchange orders. The decision was taken after the bank had submitted its application to this extent and provided proof of having no unmet professional obligations.

Orkla Brands decided that two Russian chocolate makers should merge into a single company to be named Orkla Brands Russia. Krupskaya and SladCo will be united under a single management team. The integration procedures have already begun, so the new organization is to come into being of February 25, 2011. The new company’s turnover is supposed to come to about 6.8bn RUR, total workforce is to come to 3,350 people. Orkla Brands Russia’s HQ will be based in Saint Petersburg.

Yekaterinburg commercial estate market’s major problem at the moment is that a balance needs to be struck between the realty introduced and the demand backed by the adequate paying capacity. Despite the bankers’ claims to the contrary, the lending practice has not fully recovered yet. For one, no loans are offered for project financing. The buildings that do get finished in Yekaterinburg right now are the ones that were projected and planned long ago. Virtually no new projects are being launched,’ plenipotentiary representative of the Management Companies & Developers Guild in

Uralsvyazinform, a telecommunications provider and a member of Svyazinvest Holding, handed its debtors (nearly 100,000 subscribers) to the international debt-collecting agency Lindorff. The agency is already cooperating with Rostelecom that is to unite all the smaller members of Svyazinvest in one month’s time,’ ComNews.ru reports. Uralsvyazinform and Lindorff signed their contract in December 2010. The list of debtors was given in to the agency in a few stages, in January and early February. ‘This is going to be a long-term cooperation, which means the operator will be transferring the

Yekaterinburg’s public prosecution authorities checked whether the preparatory jobs for the construction of a building in Zoologicheskaya St-Repin St-Volgogradskaya St-Serafima Deryabina St in Yekaterinburg are actually legal. The authorities detected some violations of the tree-felling regulations in the allotment in question. Yekaterinburg city council allowed OOO Torgovy Center to fell 1,161 trees, but this permission had legal flaws in it as it did not agree with the Green Area Regulations: no reasons were given for the need to fell the trees, no special expert examination took place. Nor

Eight business centers with the total area of 285,600 sq m are to be commissioned in Yekaterinburg this year, including four Class A centers (total area 221,600 sq m) and four Class B centers (total area 64,000 sq m). The news was announced at a meeting headed by Vice Mayor of Yekaterinburg for Consumer Market Viktor Konteev. Last year, five new buildings with the total area of 93,000 sq m were to have been commissioned; in reality, however, only one building was actually launched, that is, Voznesensky Business Center (Class A, total area 23,200 sq m) at 18 Pervomayskaya St. Among the

Sergey Zyryanov, Councilor to Governor of Sverdlovsk Region, was recently appointed the General Director of Uralsevergaz. The decision to this extent was made at the company’s extraordinary general meeting in Yekaterinburg on February 22, 2011. Former GD Vladimir Kuzyushin was promoted to Vice President of ITERA Group.

Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Board of Directors Viktor Rashnikov won the international prize Person of the Year 2010. The prize was founded by RBC Group in 2001. It is primarily aimed at bringing into the limelight the people who made the most significant impact on Russia’s development and promoting work for the good of the country. Each prize winner is selected by a board of experts comprising Russian politicians, economists, heads of large enterprises and cultural elite representatives. Viktor Rashnkov was nominated Person of the Year 2010 in the Businessman of the

The share of metal goods delivered by Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) onto domestic market went up to 69% of the total shipments volume last year. ‘For reasons of geographical proximity and good growth potential, we see the home market as our priority and a strategically important one,’ says MMK BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov. The company kept on building up on its metal goods sales in Russia for the last few years. While MMK only sold 36% of its produce domestically in 1999 and shipped 64% abroad, already in 2005 its home sales exceeded the export shipments for the first time. In