The Ural division of MTS, one of Russia’s top three mobile operators, confirmed to UrBC that the company was about to relocate its call center from Yekaterinburg to Samara. ‘The project is at the preliminary stage at the moment. We expect the relocation to start in June. Our Yekaterinburg office currently employs excellently trained workers whom we are interested in keeping, which is why MTS will do its best to help those of them who agree to move to Samara adjust to the new place. Those employees who prefer to stay in Yekaterinburg will be offered jobs within the company’s Ural division,

Sverdlovsk Region Federation of Trade Unions won the case regarding the claim laid against METRO Cash & Carry’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary. The defendant was accused of non-compliance with the labor law, and the court ruled that the plaintiff was right and that the notion of ‘minimal guarantees’ for harmful labor conditions did not depend on the degree of harmfulness, the spokesperson for the Federation reports. ‘When Sverdlovsk Region Federation of Trade Unions carried out an all-round inspection of the company’s labor law compliance practices, METRO turned out to violate governmental

‘An educational change is one of the main challenges proposed by the Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev. Without some knowledge upgrades and attempts to bring up a new personality type this country will never grow stable,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin announced at a meeting with the Ural colleges’ students. ‘Sverdlovsk Region has more students here than do many other parts of Russia; however, the creation of Ural Federal University does not mean it is going to absorb all the other local colleges and vocational schools. We’ll have a hierarchy like the rest of the world,’

Moscow Arbitration Court ruled in favor of the decision taken by Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service regarding OAO Concern EnergoAtom, the spokesperson for the FAS reports. The FAS declared that Concern EnergoAtom created preferential terms of tender for ZAO GMZ Khimmash and violated the procedure of determining the tender’s winner. On November 28, 2008, OAO Concern EnergoAtom and ZAO GMZ Khimmash signed an agreement for the production and delivery of air conditioners for Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant’s generating unit No. 4. The agreement was signed after Concern EnergoAtom organized an

Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Market Service refused to allow Sverdlovsk Region-based ZAO Sistema Profit Management Company to register an additional issue of ordinary registered non-certificated shares through Order 62-10-294/pz-i issued by the Service’s division on March 2, 2010.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin looked at the premises of Uralvagonzavod and considered the plant’s development programs during his recent visit to Nizhniy Tagil. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, Alexander Misharin was surprised to find out what the plant worker’s average salary was. ‘Why does such a large machine-building plant pays wages that are smaller than the region’s average? Unless you go for a pay rise and introduce a social benefits package, you will have no skilled workforce to hire,’ the Governor said to the plant’s management. ‘Following my visit

‘The bankruptcy proceedings involving OOO Ural Meat-Packing Plant have already begun, but this is more or less a formality. As far as we know, OOO Agroservice has been renting the plant’s premises for about a year now,’ Tatiana Novikova from Yekaterinburg Commodities Market Committee informed UrBC. The opening bid for Ural Meat-Packing Plant (the successor of Yekaterinburg Meat-Packing Plant) has been determined at 6 million RUR. The plant’s representative repots the auction will take place within the next forty-five days. ‘The production has actually been on the rise lately, so OOO

OAO SOGAZ was recently fined for non-compliance with the antimonopoly law. The case started when Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service ruled on September 10, 2009 that OAO SOGAZ had violated Article 11 (part 1, paragraph 5) of the Competition Protection Act. The violation consisted in that the company signed a cooperation agreement and an agency contract with AKB Bank of Moscow, the implementation of which in car loans-issuing process might result or resulted in inflicting disadvantageous terms and conditions upon the borrowing parties. These terms were also

Investing in housing no longer a good idea, FINAM claims ‘Housing prices no longer tend to go up, and we believe they will stay relatively stable throughout this year, even though the trend might change later. In our opinion, however, there are no fundamental price growth-boosting factors at play at the moment,’ says Maxim Klyagin, an analyst from FINAM Investment Company. Meanwhile, OOO Fin-Invest-Stroi, the developer of Admiralskiy housing complex in Yekaterinburg, invited investors to give their money to this project instead of opening bank deposits or heading for the stock market as the

The internal rules and policy of Ufa-based OAO Bank Investment Capital, Moscow-based OOO Perviy Cheshsko-Rossiyskiy Bank, and Perm-based Uralskiy Finansoviy Dom, as well as of a number of other banks, have not been approved of by the Federal Financial Market Service of the Russian Federation so as to counteract laundering proceeds from criminal activity as well as terrorist financing.

The net loss of Ural Railway Machine-Building Plant amounted to 22.65 million RUR in the last quarter of 2009 (compared with 68.35 million RUR worth of net loss in the third quarter of the year). The enterprise reports its losses were smaller because the company received greater interest on the money lent in the fourth quarter of 2009 and also due to increased other profits coming from the subsidies meant to compensate for the plant’s investment loan payments in the last quarter of the year.

The Consul General of the French Republic in Yekaterinburg Claude Crouail visited two of Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company UMMC-Agro’s division’s enterprises: Patrushi farm and ZAO Teplichnoye. M. Crouail examined Patrushi’s modern dairy farm that produces over 8 tons of milk per cow every year (Sverdlovsk Region’s best result so far). In Teplichnoye, the official could look at the application of the new, small-capacity vegetable-raising technology. The new technology means the vegetables and plants are grown in special mineral mats rather than in soil; each item is placed in a separate

‘My expert opinion is that it is unwise to invest in Yekaterinburg-based real estate because the local market’s pricing policy is anything but transparent. One should only buy a place to live or to do business there. So I wouldn’t trust the claims made by the developer of Admiralskiy housing complex as to the profitability of investing in this construction project. As a matter of fact, local housing is overpriced and is not likely to grow any more expensive in the next few years. On the other hand, given the shrinking number of buildings under construction, the prices are not likely to go

Ural Federal District’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) carried out inspections of Sverdlovsk Region’s enterprises and found four violations at OAO Pervouralskoye Mine Administration, the spokesperson for Rosprirodnadzor reports. The company received four warrants for inaccurate presentation of environmentally relevant information and one administrative offense protocol. Rosprirodnadzor also detected violations at OAO Malyshevskoye Mine Administration, OAO Nizhniy Tagil Boiler & Radiator Plant, OAO Ural Foil, and ZAO Turinskiy Pulp & Paper Mill.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin, whose term in office expires in April 2010, asked not to run for Governor again, RIA Novosti refers to United Russia’s press service as reporting. Now United Russia is supposed to propose the candidates for the position of Chelyabinsk Region’s Governor to the President. In fact, Yuri Neelov, Alexander Filipenko, and Eduard Rossel have already left offices as Governors of Yamalo-Nenetskiy Autonomous Region, Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region, and Sverdlovsk Region, respectively.

Starting March 30, 2010, Ural Airlines is going to operate its new Tashkent-Samara flight. The flight will be operated every week using an A320 airplane according to the following timetable: Tashkent-Samara: departure time is 4 AM; arrival time is 7:10 AM on Tuesdays; Samara-Tashkent: departure time is 11:50 PM on Mondays, arrival time is 2:40 AM on Tuesdays; all the time given is local. In addition, Ural Airlines has been operating flights from Tashkent to Yekaterinburg for over ten years now. Last year, the company also introduced Tashkent-Krasnodar and Namangan-Yekaterinburg flights.

The value of Uralfinprombank’s assets decreased by 1,863,721,000 RUR, or 26.9% in February 2010. The bank’s assets were worth 6,927,664,000 RUR on February 1, 2010 and only 5,063,943,000 RUR on March 1, 2010. The bank explains that the drop in asset value has to do with the fact that the balance of their Last Year Financial Performance account was transferred to their Last Year’s Profit account.

‘The share of Russian cars on the Russian automobile market comes to 38.8%, the share of new foreign cars is 35%, the share of foreign cars assembled in Russia comes to 13.6%, and the share of used foreign cars comes to 12.6%. Also, about 54% of cars on our roads are under ten years old and the remaining 46% of automobiles are over ten years old. As for Yekaterinburg, there are 320 cars per 1,000 dwellers,’ Chair of Yekaterinburg Commodities Market Committee Elena Chernysheva announced at a meeting with the heads of local automobile businesses. ‘Last year, one local car center had to close

Rostechnadzor (the federal environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) is going to carry out a scheduled inspection of OAO Holding MRSK and its daughter enterprises. The order to this extent has recently been signed by Rostechnadzor’s head. The electricity network provider will be checked for compliance with the legal requirements in the field of electric power industry and with the earlier orders of Rostechnadzor’s regional divisions. Also, the inspectors will see whether the company keeps taking measures to avoid doing damage to people’s life and health and to the

The town of Kachkanar, Sverdlovsk Region should concentrate on mountain skiing infrastructure, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin said during his visit to the town on March 3, 2010. ‘There is a unique mountain here that both the ore mining and processing enterprise and the mayor could take advantage of. We intend to develop the mountain skiing business here. In fact, this used to be a rather popular place back in the Soviet times, but the activity died out later. Now we have a chance to turn this skiing business into one of the town’s major economic diversification projects,’