UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2010. OAO Ural Airlines published a performance report for July and summed up its achievements in the seven months of 2010. The airline transported 982,115 passengers in January-July 2010, which exceeded the figures for January-July 2009 by 32%. 372,343 passengers used the company’s international flights, 468,937 people flew domestically, and 141, 222 passengers traveled to the countries of the CIS. The carrier operated 8,769 flights altogether, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 32%, including 2,748 international flights, 4,502 domestic flights,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2010. ‘A lot of food suppliers have set sky-high prices for some essential grocery items with no good reason lately. Auchan is currently negotiating with the suppliers and trying to restrain the prices as much as possible,’ Auchan Russia’s Purchasing Director Emin Rustamov informed UrBC. Two Auchan hypermarkets are currently run in Yekaterinburg.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2010. The assets of OAO Ural Railway Machine-Building Plant, including the realty and the intellectual property rights, are to be handed over to OOO Ural Locomotives through a corresponding purchase and sale transaction, the joint stock company’s information reports state. The transactions are worth a total of 5.95 billion RUR. At the same time, the assets of OAO Ural Railway Machine-Building Plant, were estimated at 6.34 billion RUR on March 31, 2010.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2010. ‘The forest fires and the draughts experienced by the better part of Russia’s agricultural regions is the reason the food manufacturers and suppliers have announced an increase in wheat and crops-based food items like bread, pastry, flour, pasta, and sunflower-seen oil as well as milk. The increase comes to 10% to 30% on the federal level and to 5% to 20% in the Urals,’ Metro Cash & Carry’s Corporate and Public Relations Director Oksana Tokareva said to UrBC reporters. ‘We started getting suggestions that the price for the said items should be raised

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2010. The revenues of LSR Group’s Betfor Concrete Goods Plant went down by 9.8%, or down to 307.03 million RUR, in the first half of 2010 compared with the first half of 2009. The company says the drop in revenues has to do with increased liquidity indicators as the plant has paid off a portion of its debts to suppliers.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 13, 2010. ‘My deputy Sergey Smetanyuk has been made responsible for the organization of the Ural and the Ukrainian Governors’ meeting,’ Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. The city of Yekaterinburg is to host the meeting of the Ural Federal District’s officials and business communities with their Ukrainian counterparts in September 2010. The agenda of the summit provides for a plenary session, some panel and work groups meetings, and for a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 13, 2010. ‘Yekaterinburg currently needs more visitors to come here. Our hotels should be at least 68% full and not only 50% full, as is the case at the moment, in order for the city’s conference halls to be used to the fullest. For all of this to become a reality, Yekaterinburg needs a re-branding campaign,’ Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev said at a recent meeting dedicated to commercial estate. ‘We need to create an awareness of Yekaterinburg as the best and the ‘one and only’ place in Monaco, Montreal, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. We must create

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 13, 2010. ‘The hotels are currently rather reluctant to provide the authorities with data on how many of their rooms are actually in use. We do know, however, that no more than 20% of the local hotels’ rooms were taken at the beginning of the year. This is particularly true of our new hotels. These figures result from the arrival of the new players on the market and from the increased competition. The hotels are making every effort to keep their rooms booked. They are, in fact, trying to entice the business group bookers away from each other by different means.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 12, 2010. ‘It’s rather difficult at the moment to get the new buildings launched. For one, Alatyr and Fan-Fan Shopping Malls had a hard time finding enough tenants for their shopping areas. ComsoMall Trade & Entertainment Center might also find it problematic to get plenty of tenants,’ Chairman of Ural Management Companies & Developers Council Alexei Karavayev said at a recent meeting dedicated to commercial estate. ‘This situation foreshadows the saturation of the market. This is exactly the reason why we need to introduce concept stores,’ he observed.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 12, 2010. ‘The recession has made us change our plans a bit and put a temporary halt on the construction process, but, nevertheless, we are planning to resume working on Iset Tower next to the Hyatt Hotel as soon as in the end of August, so as to launch the tower within the next three or three and a half years,’ OOO UMMC Holding’s Deputy General Director for Investment & Development Sergey Yerypalov informed UrBC. Iset Tower, an office facility, was supposed to have been launched at the end of 2008. The building was to have become Yekaterinburg City project’s

UrBC, Kaliningrad, August 12, 2010. Following the visit of the German car giant BMW AG top management to Kaliningrad-based car factory Avtotor, a decision was made to expand the automobile production output in Russia, partially through launching some newest makes, says the press officer of BaltAutoTrade, BMW and Volkswagen’s official dealer in Saint Petersburg. ‘BMW Russian dealers are faced with a shortage of certain car makes, this is why expanding the range of models produced locally at Avtotor in Kaliningrad will do the Russian market good,’ the press officer explains. The first BMW X1

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 12, 2010. Carbon monoxide, one of the most toxic components of the poisonous mix that is released in the air during fires, is gradually building up into a sort of ring in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Such was the conclusion made by NASA upon the basis of data provided by its Aqua satellite which is fitted wit a special infrared sensor. The carbon monoxide content comes to about 160:1,000,000,000 in these regions now; the main culprits are the forest and peat fires in Russia and Canada, RIA Novosti says. Scientists reported earlier that the total

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 12, 2010. In the first half of 2010, Moscow remained Russia’s No.1 city in terms of the number of customers buying new cars. 17.3% of all the new cars registered in Russia were registered in the capital. Moscow Region proved the second most active automobile-buying place in the country as usual, with 9.4% of all the new cars registered there. The data are provided by Avtostat. As for Saint Petersburg, 5.4% of all the newly bought automobiles were registered in this city, so the latter kept its status of the third most active car-buying area. Saint Petersburg was

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 12, 2010. Peat-bogs are still on fire next to Ganina Yama church site near Yekaterinburg. ‘According to the preliminary data available, the fire area comes to 200 sq m. At the moment, the peat deposit is being washed through,’ Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Russia’s Ministry of Emergencies informed UrBC. The Ministry says the fire is not dangerous for the church buildings.

UrBC, Moscow, August 12, 2010. Integra Group (LSE: INTE) and United Capital Partners (UCP) group of companies announced the completion of a transaction through which Integra sold its Yekaterinburg-based drilling machine-manufacturing business. The transaction was officially announced on June 4, 2010 and stated that Integra was to sell its 100% shareholding in ZAO URBO to UCP for $40m plus transaction expenses compensation.

Six Ural Federal District-based banks were featured in the rating of Russia’s Top 100 banks with the greatest asset volumes. The rating, commonly known as Interfax-100, was compiled by Interfax-CEA (Center for Economic Analysis) on the basis of data available for the first half of 2010. Two banks from the Top 100 list are located in Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region (Yugra), three are based in Sverdlovsk Region, and one is situated in Sverdlovsk Region. What is more, plenty of Ural banks improved their position in the rating over the last six months. For one, OAO SKB-Bank went three points

OAO METCOMBANK was declared one of Ural Federal District’s top three banks that proved the most effective in increasing their assets. The bank’s net assets came to over 40.65 billion RUR in the first half of 2010, which was 19.7% than six months earlier. The ranking was created by Interfax-CEA. Within this ranking, the bank also went seven positions up (from the 87th place on December 31, 2009 to the 80th one on July 1, 2010) on the list of Russia’s Top 100 largest banks. 974 Russian banks competed in Interfax-CEA rating altogether, including fifty banks from Ural Federal District.

20% of Sverdlovsk Region dwellers would like to leave the place; these figures correspond with the data available for the entire Russia’s average dissatisfaction level. The information is obtained from a research done by Public Opinion Fund. The locals’ migration mood fits in the ‘below average’ category, the fund’s sociologists say. As for the other parts of the Urals, a greater percentage of the population wants to move. 34% of people currently based in Kurgan Region would like to leave elsewhere. 21% of locals would like to leave Perm Territory as well.

Upon order 62-10-1100/pz-i of Ural Federal District’s division of Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service issued on August 3, 2010, the issue of Sverdlovsk Region-based OAO Irbit Chemical & Pharmaceutical Plant’s registered non-certificated shares was halted.

Starting September 1, 2010, MEGA Yekaterinburg will no longer provide a free shuttle to the mall from Geologicheskaya subway station. The company reports that the promotional service was introduced for the launch period of the shopping center and will now give way to public transport. This measure is taken within the framework of IKEA’s federal program on the new ways of providing a link to MEGA centers. The free shuttle was first launched in October 2006. The mall says Yekaterinburg city council’s transport committee is already preparing to introduce two additional bus routes to the site.