The joint meeting of Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly’s both chambers will take place on November 17, 2009. The main point on the agenda is whether Alexander Misharin is going to be appointed the region’s new Governor, Chairman of Sverdlovsk Region Duma Nikolai Voronin informed the journalists on Wednesday. President Dmitriy Medvedev had suggested considering the appointment of the current Director of the Russian Federation Government Industry and Infrastructure Department Alexander Misharin a few days earlier. Under the current regional legislation, a candidate must receive a majority

Russia’s Transport Ministry might limit the amount of flights Austrian Airlines are allowed to operate to Russia. According to Kommersant, the carrier was recently sold to Lufthansa, which the Ministry officials believe resulted in the company losing its national status and the right to operate flights to Russia under the intergovernmental agreement. ‘If the airline does not belong to either the Austrian state or the Austrian residents, it cannot operate flights to Russia under the Russian-Austrian air traffic treaty,’ the Ministry representative said to Kommersant. In the meantime, Austrian

The net profit of Ural Plant EMA plunged by 51,166 RUR, or 98.9% in the third quarter of 2009. The company’s profit figures decreased from 51,733 RUR in the second quarter down to 567 RUR in the third quarter. The plant explains the drop in profits has to do with the increased repair expenses and growing heating and electricity bills.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin provided some comments on the President of the Russian Federation Dmitriy Medvedev’s annual Address to the Federal Assembly. ‘This is a carefully thought-through strategic document. Its overarching idea is that Russia needs to upgrade its economy, infrastructure, and socio-political fields. The President is right: we have no time to lose. This is a matter of the country’s global survival. We can only survive in this world by truly moving to a new, high quality standard of living, by creating a post-industrial, innovative economy, and by adopting a new

‘The dealing agreement we had with Avtoland Holding was halted because our company is going through a reorganization process; we might consider prolonging this agreement once the new structure of the business has become clear,’ Jaguar Land Rover Russia’s PR Manager Yulia Malyina said to UrBC. Avtoland Britannia’s agreement with Land Rover and Jaguar was halted on October 15, 2009. ‘Nevertheless, the company can still provide an official dealer’s services to customers whose automobiles were acquired before October 15, 2009. Still, our official dealer in Yekaterinburg is now Krasnolesye car

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by AKB ROSBANK’s Yekaterinburg branch against Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Enterprise. The plaintiff wants to receive 167.5 million RUR the enterprise owes it. The sum in question comprises the promissory notes debt as well as the interest and some fines. The defendant refuses to meet the creditor’s demands: the company claims that the date the disputed notes for December 2008-April 2009 were signed, as well as the General Director’s signatures, can’t be authentic because the GD was actually away on business

Deputy General Director of Koltsovo-Invest Evgeniy Chudnovskiy agreed to become the General Director of Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg. His proposal will be presented to the airport’s shareholders at the extraordinary general meeting on December 4, 2009. The news was announced by the airport via Oblastnaya Gazeta. The main point on this meeting’s agenda used to be the early resignation of GD Kirill Shubin. However, Shubin recently resigned of his own accord and headed the newly founded Sverdlovsk Region State Order Department.

BINBANK’s Board of Directors decided to close down some of its representations in a number of Russian regions, including those in Volgodonsk (Rostov Region) and Magnitogorsk (Chelyabinsk Region). The bank’s President Mikhail Shishkhanov is to set the date for the closing down and to carry out all the procedures related to the closure.

The representatives of Reftinskaya state district power plant were unable to provide any comments on the decision taken by the public prosecution authorities of Sukhoi Log, Sverdlovsk Region. The authorities protested against the town mayor’s ruling concerning the public hearings carried out by the power plant’s management on September 17, 2009. The public prosecution authorities thus voiced their doubts as to whether these hearings (related to the plant’s new dry ash handling project) were actually legitimate. The problem was first brought into the limelight by members of the International

The telecommunications provider’s Board of Directors decided to set the annual interest rate for the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth coupons of the company’s 06 bond issue at 10.5%. Uralsvyazinform went through with this two-billion-ruble bond issue on November 24, 2005. The interest rate for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth coupons was determined at 8.2% a year, that for the seventh and eighth coupons was set at 13% a year. This means that the interest rate for coupons 9-12 is going to be a little lower. As a matter of fact, the company successfully went through with a

Ural Airlines will start operating its new scheduled Yekaterinburg-Namangan flight on November 18, 2009. The new flight will be operated every Wednesday using an A 320 airplane. As for flight U6-2963 Yekaterinburg-Namangan (Uzbekistan), departure and arrival time is 1:15 PM and 4:05 PM, respectively. The departure and arrival time for the return flight (U6 -2964) is 5:35 PM and 8:35 PM, respectively. The flight timetable was compiled so as to take into account the passengers possibly changing planes on the way. The new flight provides for a variety of convenient connecting flights through

The international rating agency affirmed Alfa-Bank’s long-term Issuer Default Rating at BB-, while the Rating Outlook was promoted from Negative to Stable. Fitch reports the improvement in the rating outlook has to do with the recent general improvements in the country’s banking sector and with Alfa-Bank’s increased loss absorption capacity (partially caused by some fresh capital inflow). At the same time, the rating agency claims Alfa-Bank’s bad debt (that is, debts that are more than ninety days overdue) rose up to 16.9% in the third quarter of 2009. On January 1, 2009, the figure only came

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court will resume hearing of the claim laid by Global Gaming Expo against Bank24.ru on November 9, 2009. GGE insists on being paid 199.765 million RUR that the bank has allegedly obtained through unjust enrichment. Alfa-Bank is also involved in the case as a third party with no claims of its own. GGE was founded by Bank24.ru’s former BOD member Alexei Kalinichenko. The former bank executive’s business activity involved trading on Forex foreign exchange market. Capital was attracted through private investors, who had been promised the annual yield of 30% to 200%.

‘The socioeconomic stability of Severouralsk depends on many external factors, including the changes in the industrial sector, as the city’s primary employers are our ore mining and woodworking enterprises,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the State Employment Service said to UrBC reporter. The current recession has made many local businesses, like SUBR-Stroy, Stroymasterural, and Severouralsk concrete goods plant, for instance, produce less and work shorter hours. The Service reports these three enterprises are faced with the threat of large-scale redundancies. The

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin sent a letter of congratulations to Chelindbank’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board Mikhail Bratiskhin, who celebrated his 85th birthday recently. ‘Thanks to your efforts, Chelyabinsk Region keeps developing and lives increasingly better; you’ve also been helping the region to cope with difficulties. Your professional skills and talent, as well as your outstanding compassion and patriotism, result in great achievements that mean a lot to both the people and the country,’ the letter says. Sumin noted the bank executive had been working within the

Mill 450 was recently repaired at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). According to the company’s PR Department, the repairs involved replacement of the mill furnace lining and the mechanical bits of machinery. Also, the foundation of the mill’s fourth section was replaced with the new one and new rollers were installed at the central fridge roller conveyor. Mekhanoremontniy Komplex, Elektroremont, and Magnitogorsk maintenance center were the general contractor for the project responsible for mechanical repairs, electric equipment repairs, and hydraulic system repairs, respectively. As

Interfax-Center for Economic Analysis (Interfax-CEA) came up with a ranking of Russia’s best developing banks in the nine months of 2009. According to this ranking, MDM Bank proved one of the country’s fastest-growing credit organizations, the bank’s press officer reports. MDM Bank’s assets have increased by 81% since the beginning of the year; this has been the greatest figure among Russia’s Top 20 banks since January 2009. At the same time, the increase in the total assets of Russia’s 100 largest banks only amounted to .1% in the three quarters of 2009. MDM Bank was the first on the list of

The General Director of UralNITI Anatoly Sukhov was forced to accept an early resignation after his labor contract had been cancelled in the course of an extraordinary general meeting. Alexei Fefelov is going to become the enterprise’s new GD. As a matter of fact, Sukhov ran for General Director as well but failed to win enough votes.

‘Our sales of Opel cars are as smooth as ever, even though General Motors did decide not to sell its daughter enterprise after all. In fact, GM has been struggling with some problems of its own; one way or another, the company has got only one distributor delivering its cars to Russia. This distributor will certainly keep buying General Motors’ produce, so any customer can always place an order for the model he or she likes. All this talk of the government planning to impose sanctions on GM is just rubbish. Opel has been present on the Russian market since the nineties; it is a very strong