UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 27, 2010. The dividends of Concern Kalina’s stockholders remained the same in the first half of 2010 as they were in the second half of 2009. The decision to this extent was made at the extraordinary general meeting the other day. The first half of this year will result in the dividend of 10.66 RUR per ordinary share (in Russian rubles or in foreign currency, with the exchange rate introduced by the Central Bank of Russia on the payment day) within thirty days of the meeting. In the second half of 2009, the dividends also came to 10.66 RUR per share.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 27, 2010. OAO European-Asian Company is no longer a co-founder of OOO Ural-Siberia-Les. Prior to this change, the Company used to own 100% of Ural-Siberia-Les’s shares.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 27, 2010. Standard & Poor's, the international rating agency, promoted OAO Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank’s rating outlook from Stable to Positive recently. At the same time, the contractor’s long-term B+, short-term B, and the national scale ruA+ credit ratings have remained the same. ‘The new outlook reflects our feeling that the negative impact of the economic downfall has actually done less harm to Khanty-Mansiyskiy Bank than we’d expected; moreover, the bank proved to operate rather stably in financial terms,’ says Standard & Poor's credit analyst

UrBC, Moscow, August 27, 2010. Russian Railways Public Company’s Board of Directors met in Moscow to confirm the introduction of OAO Second Freight Company in Sverdlovsk Region, the spokesperson for the region’s Governor reports. Alexander Misharin was actually invited by President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin to take part in the meeting. The railway company reports they hope Second Freight Company is to become Russia’s second largest freight business in terms of fleet.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Economics is currently working on a set of documents necessary to place an application regarding the creation of Titanium Valley (a special economic zone for industrial purposes) with Russia’s Ministry for Economic Development. The application is supposed to be submitted in December 2010, upon which it is to be considered by an ad hoc governmental committee which is to decide whether the project looks expedient or not. ‘The federal authorities are generally positive about the project. This is now the matter of how fast and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. Sverdlovsk Region Duma deputy Andrei Alshevskikh placed his complaint regarding the Former Hydropathical Establishment, a monument of architecture recently pulled down in the center of Yekaterinburg, with the region’s Ministry of Culture and public prosecution authorities. The nineteenth century building was situated on the premises of a construction site for Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch new, high-rise office building in Rosa Luxemburg St. The bank originally signed a contract for the restoration of the building, but the piece got demolished instead.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. 1,500 companies and organizations dealt in foreign trade in the Yekaterinburg Customs zone between January 1, 2010 and August 20, 2010. These entities submitted a total of 33,600 cargo manifests on the cargo transfer mode and specifications that get accounted for in the customs foreign trade statistics, Ural Customs Administration’s press service reports. The foreign trade turnover rose by 23.9% over the said period compared with January-August 2009; the cargo turnover went up by 13.1%, the number of submitted cargo manifests increased by 21.2%, and the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. As always, Sverdlovsk Region mainly exported metals and metal goods and the produce of the chemical and the machine-building industries in January-June 2010, reports the region’s Ministry for International and Foreign Economic Relations. In fact, the export delivery volumes are going up faster than Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial production does; the latter went up by 10% in the first half of 2010. In terms of prices, the metal deliveries rose by 42%. For one, the ferrous metals export increased by 31%, the export of ferrous metals-based products went up

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 26, 2010. The court of Serov, Sverdlovsk Region, returned the verdict of guilty upon the director of OOO TK Alliance, who illegally used some copyright protected software in his business, the press officer of Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities reports. The court ruled that Alliance’s General Director illegitimately copied and installed a number of software programs belonging to ZAO 1C and Microsoft Corporation on his hard drive. ‘The businessman’s actions did over 220,000 RUR worth of damage to the copyright owners,’ the prosecution authorities

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 25, 2010. Russia’s Federal Financial Market Service annulled the license allowing Chelyabinsk-based OOO Magister Management Company to deal in investment fund management, unit trust management, or private retirement funds. The Service reports the decision was taken after the company had submitted a corresponding application and the official proof of having no unfulfilled business liabilities.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 25, 2010. Starting this August, OAO METCOMBANK’s customers can take out a mortgage on more appealing terms thanks to two new programs, Maternity Capital and New Building. The Maternity Capital scheme allows the mortgage-takers to buy a place on both the existing and the new homes market, whereas the New Building one gives one a chance to buy a new home on a mortgage with a decreased interest rate. The interest rate, in fact, comes to 10.5% and up; the buildings must be under three years old.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 25, 2010. According to the Bank of Russia’s latest six-month report, Sverdlovsk Region-based banks issued a total of 44.81 billion RUR worth of consumer loans to private individuals, which was 5.58 billion RUR more than six months earlier. OAO SKB-Bank proved the Urals’ No. 1 bank in terms of growing consumer lending portfolio, the bank’s press service reports.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 25, 2010. 575,090 sq m of housing was introduced in Sverdlovsk Region in January-July 2010. Among the cities with the greatest number of new dwellings were Yekaterinburg, with its 304,430 sq m worth of housing, Berezovskiy, with its 29,780 sq m worth of housing, and Sysert, with its 24,570 sq m worth of housing. At the same time, no new dwellings whatsoever were put up in seven regional towns in the first half of the year. All in all, 130.9 sq m on average were put up for every 1,000 local dwellers in Sverdlovsk Region. This figure was greater in fifteen local

UrBC, Moscow, August 24, 2010. B.N. Yeltsin Ural Federal University is to get a state subsidy for innovational development, the Russian Federation Ministry of Education’s portal says. The Urals-based university was chosen as one of the winners of a tender targeted at selecting the innovational infrastructure development programs alongside with fifty other universities from thirty-six federal constituencies.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 24, 2010. ZAO Chelyabinsk Boiling Machinery Plant has been declared a dishonest supplier by Primorskiy division of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service. The reason this decision was taken was that the plant won a 14.85-million-ruble boiler-supplying tender run by Nakhodka city council but backed out of delivering the boiler and the accompanying machinery.

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, August 6, 2010. OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) produced 1,642,000 tons of goods with high added value in the first half of 2010 compared with 968,000 tons in the first half of 2009. These figures include 556,000 tons of cold-rolled sheets, 680,000 tons of fourth-level processing, and over 400,000 tons of Mill 5000 manufactured products. This means that 32% of all the goods delivered by the company to consumers were goods with high added value. ‘This was made possible due to the launch of Mill 5000 which makes plate iron for large-diameter pipes. What is

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, August 13, 2010. OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) came up with a financial performance report (compiled in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards) for the second quarter of 2010. The company’s revenues rose by 26% in the second quarter of the year compared with the first quarter of 2010 and amounted to 53.117 billion RUR. MMK says the increase in revenues has to do with greater sales volumes and the rising average prices. The average price of 1,000 kg of MMK’s produce went up by 15.1% in the second quarter of 2010 against the first quarter and reached

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, August 17, 2010. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and OAO Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ) signed an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation. The partnership project presumes that both companies’ engineers will coordinate their efforts in the field of new tubing products design. The tubes are to be manufactured in ChTPZ Vysota 239 department shop. Besides, the engineers will work on new alloys and materials with pre-programmed mechanical properties for MMK Mill 5000. Both MMK and ChTPZ are also planning to work together with a number of leading

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, August 23, 2010. OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) keeps working on its cold roll Mill 2000 within the framework of the corporate investment project on putting up a cold-roll facility. The new mill is primarily meant for the production of high quality cold-rolled and zinc-coated products for the automobile industry as well as for home appliances manufacturers and the construction business. The estimated capacity of the cold roll facility comes to 2 million tons of goods a year. The workers have already started assembling the technological

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 23, 2010. M.Video consumer electronics and home appliances chain store says it won’t be ready to set up a new outlet in Yekaterinburg any time before 2012 or 2013. The company currently runs six stores in Sverdlovsk Region’s capital, with the last one launched in ComsoMALL Trade & Entertainment Center; this area of this new hypermarket comes to about 2,500 sq m. The opening required 55 million RUR worth of investments.