The certificate-issuing company Germanischer Lloyd provided OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) with a certificate that proves the enterprise’s Mill5000-manufactured shipbuilding steel’s compliance with the certificating body’s standards. The unique plate Mill5000 was launched at MMK in July 2009; the unit’s capacity comes to 1.5 million tons of steel a year; its produce was meant for the shipbuilding industry as well as some others. The mill’s technological characteristics make it possible to manufacture things for the oil platforms stationed in the Arctic Regions and for the

‘The foods delivered to Russia by Valio, a Finnish company, raise increasingly more concerns from Rospotrebnadzor,’ RIA Novosti quotes head of the state consumer rights watchdog Gennady Onischenko as saying. ‘The melted cheese packs imported from Finland by Valio, a company that is associated with the market economy and good quality in Russia, unfortunately come to look more and more suspicious,’ Onischenko said. The executive explained the worries had to do with the use of some exotic oils in the production of the cheese in question; he did not specify what specific problems this implied,

Each and every of OAO SKB-Bank’s offices renders a full range of services to private individuals, so one can open a bank account there, take out a loan, get a money order or make various kinds of payments. The latter service is particularly popular with the bank’s customers, as over 1 million housing bills have been paid through SKB-Bank since the beginning of the year,’ the bank’s press service reports. In addition to housing bills, the bank’s outlets accept and handle mobile and landline phone bills, Internet fees, security service and door phone payments, tuition fees, road fines and much

Travelers from the Urals will try to be more careful in Egypt rather than to give up on the idea of going altogether. All the tours to Egypt have already been booked, and not a single customer has asked for their money back so far. After all, there are a lot of unpleasant things that can happen to you in Sharm El Sheikh, for example, jellyfish stings. One should always watch out and keep safe. Then, unlike, say, Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh is a developing city, with new hotels and restaurants opening all the time. This is a very appealing factor for tourists,’ Director of OOO Inna-Tour Inna

The National Call Center Association did a research aimed at identifying the best call centers among Russia’s eighty largest banks and insurance companies recently. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s Information & Help Center was rated one of the country’s Top 10 call centers within the framework of this research. ‘The call center operators’ primary task is to provide the bank’s customers with information on the bank’s activity quickly and in all the detail; they also have to give a full account of the bank’s services. In case a customer has questions related to some

TNK-BP placed a petition on buying Koltsovo Airport’s filling station with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service. The airport reports they need to sell the station in order to make the regional jet fuel market more liberal; the transaction sum has not been announced yet, Kommersant reports. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin announced a few days ago that the airport’s fuel filling station (a part of which belongs to the regional government) might be sold to an outside organization. The Governor explained several stations owned by different proprietors were needed at the airport

Russia’s federal consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor reports the outbreak of cholera on the island of Haiti is growing increasingly more serious. According to Haiti’s Healthcare Ministry’s official data, over 18,000 people diagnosed with cholera had been hospitalized by mid-November, and over a thousand died. Patients diagnosed with cholera have been registered in all of the country’s ten departments as well as in the Dominican Republic and the state of Florida, U.S. The World Health Organization’s Pan-American office predicts the epidemic will be spread further and affect the

Most Yekaterinburg-based computer users were faced with a sudden breakup of QIP, an instant messenger program. When a user is trying to get connected to the program, the system tells them the connections limit has already been exceeded. Meanwhile, no information on the large-scale hook-offs has been provided via the program’s official website.

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service filed yet another lawsuit against Evraz Group. The company is suspected of setting monopoly vanadium-containing raw materials prices and of discriminating its consumers, RBC daily reports. The complaint against the company was placed by Chusovskoy Metallurgical Plant; the plant was unhappy with the fact that Evraz’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise set monopoly prices and practiced different price policies for different consumers of vanadium-containing raw materials. Now Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise is Russia’s only

The international rating agency Standard & Poor's promoted the Russian telecommunications provider Uralsvyazinform’s long-term credit rating from B+ to BB-. Besides, all the ratings were taken off the agency’s CreditWatch list and have Positive outlook. ‘This promotion means we believe the company’s financial profile has come to look better recently,’ says Standard & Poor's credit analyst Alexander Gryaznov. ‘The company’s liquidity estimates were improved from Weak to Sufficient since Uralsvyazinform managed to reduce its dependence on short-term debts this year, he

A portion of counterfeit gods was confiscated by Nizhniy Tagil Customs officers and the representatives of Serov and Sosva law-enforcement agencies in the town of Serov. It has been reported by Ural Customs Administration that no papers necessary for the legal import of sportswear bearing the logos of Lacoste, Adidas, Umbro, and Nike could be provided. An expert examination also made it clear that the goods in question were not genuine products. This means selling this sportswear infringed upon the trademark owners’ rights, so 230 fake items of clothing were confiscated. All in all, the

OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) was rated second on Russia’s Top 90 companies list for the year 2010. The information transparency research (on the basis of which this rating was compiled) was carried out through the joint efforts of Standard & Poor’s and CEFIR (the Center for Economic and Financial Research). The only data used in the research were those obtained through the open media sources. The methodology of the analysis was devised by Standard & Poor’s and comprised 110 criteria grouped along three main sections: a company’s ownership scheme and the stockholders’

Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg raised its jet fuel prices by 8%, that is, to 21,850 RUR per 1,000 kg. The prices went up after the fuel suppliers had launched a price increase, the airport’s press service explained to Interfax.

OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) was pronounced the winner of the 6th All-Russian contest on Conservational Activity Leadership. The contest was organized within the framework of the 6th All-Russian environmental conference New National Environmental Policy Priorities in The Real Sector. MMK’s management received the Environmental Safety medal. MMK’s capital spending on the construction of the new and the renovation of the existing conservational facilities amounted to nearly 9 billion RUR between 1999 and 2009. The company now directs over 1 billion RUR to conservational

Istanbul-Yekaterinburg flight operated by Turkish Airlines has been delayed. The airline hasn’t been able to state the exact arrival time yet. Now the flight was supposed to have arrived in Yekaterinburg at noon today, but was actually called off.

The project on the introduction of a nanotech center on the premises of Ural Scientific & Technological Institute in Yekaterinburg won in the second open-to-all contest coordinated by Rosnano State Corporation. This means that the project can hope to receive the corporation’s financing. According to Sverdlovsk Region’s Minister for Industry & Science Alexander Petrov, the center aims to deal in the development and commercial application of nanotechnologies with the help of the most advanced nanotech machinery. The minister explained the project’s total budget amounted to 1.7 billion

Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport neither let any planes land on its runways nor allowed any aircraft to take off from its premises from 9:00 PM on November 28 to 2:00 AM on November 29, 2010 due to unfavorable weather conditions. The heavy snowfall and a strong wind reduced visibility in the airport area down to 150 meters and the friction coefficient of the runway was lower than the officially permitted limit of 0.3, all of which caused considerable flight delays. Twenty-four flights were delayed on November 28 alone: thirteen planes arrived late and eleven aircraft’s departure was put off.

The international raring agency Standard & Poor's reconsidered its rating outlook of the Russian Home Credit & Finance Bank recently, promoting it from Negative to Stable. At the same time, the bank’s contractor long-term and short-term credit ratings were affirmed at B+ and B, respectively. ‘An improved rating outlook reflects our feeling that the bank’s financial performance indicators grew to look better within the recovering operating environment on the Russian market. For one, Home Credit & Finance Bank’s has been enjoying some positive business development dynamics

Transaero-operated flights from Bali and Phuket to Yekaterinburg have been delayed, Koltsovo Airport of Yekateirnburg’s interactive announcement board states. The plane operating Denpasar-Yekaterinburg flight that was to have arrived at the airport at 1:20 AM on November 30, 2010 will only land in Yekaterinburg at 10:15 AM. The plane from Thailand, which was to have landed at 8:00 PM on November 29, 2010, will now land in Yekaterinburg at 2:50 AM on November 30, 2010. In both cases, the delay has reportedly been caused by the late arrival of the aircraft in the respective airports in Bali and

The Federal Antimonopoly Service’s Perm Territory division imposed a million-ruble fine on Sberbank of Russia’s West-Ural branch for abusing the bank’s monopoly on the local market. The Service stated earlier that Sberbank of Russia’s West-Ural branch had violated Article 10 (part 1, paragraph 7) of the Federal Competition Protection Act. The offense consisted in the bank abusing its dominant market position through introducing unreasonably high fees for the opening of and administration of an account (with no e-banking services provided) for legal entities. Such pricing policies were