‘A Russian-German summit will take place in Yekaterinburg in the spring of 2010,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin announced at his recent meeting with the participants of the President’s management training program in Yekaterinburg.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to resume the hearing of the claim laid by OOO Nash Stil against Uralvneshtorg Sverdlovsk Region State Unitary Enterprise on December 22, 2009. The plaintiff placed the claim with the court on September 15, 2009, asking that the defendant be declared bankrupt. Nash Stil insisted Uralvneshtorg owed it over 100,000 RUR which the latter had been unable to pay for over three months. The existence of this debt was officially confirmed by the arbitration court. During the last court hearing, the creditor reiterated its money claims and the debtor asked for the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court resumed the hearing of the claim laid by OAO AKB Rosbank’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary against Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Enterprise. The plaintiff insists on being paid 167 million RUR worth of debt. The court hearing was scheduled for December 22, 2009. The debt in question stems from the money borrowed through promissory notes as well as the interest and fines. The proceedings could be resumed after the results of the handwriting comparison had been received. The thing is, the defendant insists that its creditor’s claims are ungrounded

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps handling OAO Pnevmostroymashina’s bankruptcy proceedings. The company placed its insolvency application with the court on September 3, 2009. The court reports the company has already got over sixty various creditors, including ZAO AKB Absolut Bank’s Yekaterinburg branch, Raiffeisen-Bank Austria’s Ural subsidiary, Bank VTB’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary, ZAO KAB Bank Société Générale Vostok, UniCreditBank, and some others. The next court hearing has been scheduled for December 22, 2009.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin signed a decree related to giving awards to the law-enforcement officers who took part in the investigation of Valeriy Nekrasov’s murder. Valeriy Nekrasov was the CEO of Chelyabinsk Obligatory Medical Insurance Fund. Following Petr Sumin’s provision, forty-six officers from Chelyabinsk Region’s Internal Affairs Administration and the prosecution authorities’ investigative committee will be given premiums ranging between 20,000 RUR and 50,000 RUR. The spokesperson for the Governor reports the crime was committed on November 22, 2009 and only a day

Chelyabinsk Region is going to devote the next five years to healthcare improvements, the region’s Governor Petr Sumin announced at a recent press conference. ‘Over the last few years, plenty of improvements have been introduced in the healthcare field in Kunashakskiy and Argayashskiy districts as well as in Varna, Chesma, Troitsk, and Chelyabinsk. We have already built a number of important facilities and we keep on working on some new ones. For one, a children’s hospital was put up in Chelyabinsk, which cost 1.3 billion RUR. Naturally we don’t have enough money for every single project, but

‘The worst part of the recession is over,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin announced at an end-of-year press conference. Sumin said the year 2009 was the hardest ever for the region. The recession cut the regional budget by 43% and made the authorities decrease budget expenses by 32 billion RUR. What is more, they still had to pay the local enterprises back 10 billion RUR worth of over-paid income tax. ‘There were some grave socioeconomic problems, too: the unemployment rate tripled and reached 70,000 jobless people in May 2009,’ he noted. ‘What helped us overcome all these

‘In spite of the harsh weather conditions, 1.5 million tons of crops and plenty of vegetables have been harvested in the region this year,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said at a recent press conference. The Governor also noted 278,000 tons of meat had been produced, including 150,000 tons of poultry. ‘Our farmers have learned to manage their money well, so our agribusiness lending portfolio increased to 10 billion RUR in 2009. This money is used to improve the production facilities, launch new technologies, and implement large-scale investment projects. In 2010, the region’s

‘612 buildings have been inspected by fire safety officials in Sverdlovsk Region. Forty-nine buildings have been declared unsafe, so the businesses within will have to be closed down. Out of these forty-nine organizations, ten have already stopped operating,’ head of Sverdlovsk Region State Fire Surveillance Administration Vadim Zubarev announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The inspections revealed over 4,000 violations of fire safety requirements. So, 340 top executives will have to face some administrative pressure. Amazingly, only 63 out of 612 buildings (that is, 10%) have

BOD Chairman of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) Dmitriy Pumpyanskiy was unanimously elected the new Chair of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Sverdlovsk Region division. He succeeded Vladimir Semenov in this position. The election procedure took place during an extended meeting of the Union’s regional division. This regional division of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs was founded in 1991 as an independent entity and merged with the Union in 1999. In December 2005, this organization was re-registered as Sverdlovsk Region Union of Industrialists and

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin’s official website (www.amisharin.ru) can now be found online. The Governor’s web resource provides users with some updates on the official’s activity, the Governor’s orders and provisions, and links to the websites of Sverdlovsk Region’s major government authorities. The website also features Alexander Misharin’s video blog with his first address to the region’s dwellers.

It has been suggested that Viktor Koltunyuk, Vladimir Vlasov, and Anatoly Levchenko should become Sverdlovsk Region’s Ministers for Finance, Social Policy, and State Property Management, respectively. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin and Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin keep recruiting a new Cabinet. The proposals for the new Ministers for Finance, Social Policy, and State Property Management were officially presented to the region’s Duma on December 21, 2009. Under Sverdlovsk Region’s Charter, the Duma must either support or turn down these proposals.

Russian people no longer fear taking loans and have been applying for them more and more often, SKB-Bank’s press officer refers to Profi Online Research analysts as saying. The analysts did a survey on consumers based in large Russian cities and came to the conclusion that the demand for loans has gone up by over 7% since the beginning of the year. For one, some 77% of respondents said they would like to borrow money from a bank in the first quarter of 2009; in the third quarter, the number of such respondents rose to 85%. ‘The economic situation is growing more stable, so Russians are

‘In spite of the harsh weather conditions, 1.5 million tons of crops and plenty of vegetables have been harvested in the region this year,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said at a recent press conference. The Governor also noted 278,000 tons of meat had been produced, including 150,000 tons of poultry. ‘Our farmers have learned to manage their money well, so our agribusiness lending portfolio increased to 10 billion RUR in 2009. This money is used to improve the production facilities, launch new technologies, and implement large-scale investment projects. In 2010, the region’s

1.4 million sq m of new housing will have been launched in Chelyabinsk Region by the end of 2009. This figure falls short of the previous year’s one by 600,000 sq m, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin announced at his end-of-year press conference. ‘This year’s hardships experienced by the building industry actually boosted the federal housing overhaul program. As a result, about 3,000 apartment buildings have been repaired this year and 5,000 people were relocated from slums. This cost the region 4 billion RUR. The money was mainly supplied from the Communal Housing Services Reform

Trust National Bank has been brought into the limelight by the media recently when a few online magazines carried some articles that were highly critical of the bank’s financial policy. Trust was accused of taking unnecessarily high financial risks and of trying to exert pressure on the government through customer lobby groups. The articles maintain that the bank is going through a period of financial hardships and is allegedly on the brink of default. The management is supposedly trying to save the business by selling the bank’s shares to state-run Rosneft. The publications also claim that

‘The third extension to Tikhvin Club House was commissioned at the beginning of 2009. At the moment, the demand for the apartments in the building is neither growing nor declining. We used to sign sale contracts on a regular basis, but now we get one month of idleness followed by two or three sales in a row in the following month,’ General Director of Forum Group Sergey Vorobiev said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg dedicated to the end-of-year performance of the local real estate market. ‘As for putting up a new Forum Mall where the old Central Market used to be, this project of ours

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court started looking into OOO Romanskiy Stil’s insolvency application on December 18, 2009. The company placed its application with the court on November 20, 2009. Romanskiy Stil deals in wholesale and retail sales of top-of-the-range building materials. The trustee in bankruptcy will probably be chosen among the members of Severo-Zapad Self-Regulatory Organization of Trustees in Bankruptcy Noncommercial Partnership.

‘The Arbitration Court is now processing the protest placed by Investtorgstroy against the 40,000- ruble fine we imposed on the company for improper advert (containing the word ‘Crikey’) of their new block of apartment buildings called Zelenaya Roscha,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service said to UrBC. The FAS’s regional division stated on August 11, 2009 that the advertisement of a newly built living quarter in Yekaterinburg was improper because of the slang word (‘Crikey’) it contained. The use of slang is actually forbidden by Article 5

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps handling the claim laid by Yekaterinburg’s Verkh-Isetskiy district tax inspectorate (on behalf of the Russian Federation Tax Service) against Aston Construction Company. The plaintiff insists that Aston be declared bankrupt, the spokesperson for the court reports. The tax inspectorate maintains that Aston hasn’t paid it the 953,884.95-ruble debt in three entire months. The inspectorate refers to Articles 3,7,33, 41, and 39 (paragraph 5) of the Federal Insolvency Act as the legal grounds for declaring the construction company bankrupt. The court