Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin took part in the recent Greater Urals Interregional Association for Economic Cooperation’s meeting in Yekaterinburg. In his speech, the Governor gave his vision of how the Association could help overcome the recession as quickly as possible, reminding the listeners of its success in the early nineties when Russia was fighting another crisis. Sumin said the Ural regions needed an action plan aimed at a fast and painless economic recovery through the banking sector development and tax relief for businesses willing to invest in upgrades and energy-saving

Sky Express Airlines transferred 701,220 passengers in January-August 2009, which was 2.1% less than in January-August 2008. Then, the carrier’s passenger load factor rose by 7.5% in comparison with the year earlier and came to 70.4%, which was actually a bit better than the Russian airline industry’s average indicators.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the local construction and assembling management department’s bankruptcy case. The department No 115 placed its insolvency application with the court on June 30, 2009. Then, Tsentr Metalla placed a claim against the company on July 23, 2009, insisting that the defendant should be declared bankrupt. Given that the department was the first to apply for bankruptcy, the court though it best to unite both cases into a single file. The court hearing has been scheduled for September 21, 2009.

Ural Tire Plant’s production output dropped by 77.5% in the first half of the year against a year earlier, thus making the company a loss-making one,’ the plant’s General Director Maxim Yarmak announced at Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Industry and Science crisis-defying committee’s meeting. ‘So now the plant’s workers keep writing letters to the Russian Federation President and Sverdlovsk Region Government, asking to look into the grave situation at the enterprise,’ he added.

Avtoland Holding no longer operates show rooms in Novosibirsk, Continent-Siberia business portal reports. ‘The company’s car shows are closed, no one answers the phone, and the dealer is getting ready to leave the premises rented from Uralchermetavto (Avtoland Holding’s affiliated company). According to Yekaterinburg-based Avtoland Holding’s representative Svetlana Petrovikh, they are now busy taking inventory of all the property and stock; this is to be completed by September 25,2009, however,’ the portal quotes the company representative as saying. ‘The company owes a lot of money to a

Bank Severnaya Kazna (the asset of Alfa-Bank) announced they were going to raise most of their service fees on October 1, 2009. This rise will affect services rendered to legal entities, sole traders, and self-employed private individuals. As a matter of fact, the bank also modified the terms of its writing-off transactions as early as September 15, 2009. The money is now transferred from the bank account to the necessary destination only the day after the invoice documents have been placed with the bank. Finally, Bank Severnaya Kazna will stop providing its customers with e-banking services

Aeroflot Russian Airlines’ PR Department recently announced 2,000 upcoming job losses. ‘The redundancies are primarily targeted at improving labor productivity and introducing pay rises for both our pilots and managers,’ the PR Department says. The airline reports they will fire some of the administrative-and-managerial staff, namely, about 600 people. Then, over 1,300 cleaners, janitors, cloak room attendants, elevator operators, and drivers will also have to leave the company. Of the two thousand people to be made redundant, 592 workers have reached retirement age.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is going to consider the claim laid by Rezh rolled metal products plant against Impuls-Stroy this week, the spokesperson for the court reports. The plaintiff took legal action in the hope of getting 263,778,965.28 RUR for the supply of ferrotitanium delivered to Impuls-Stroy in accordance with agreement 01/04-05 signed on April 15, 2004. This Rezh manufacturer deals in production and gross sales of rolled metal goods.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps considering the claim laid by Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Public Property Management against OOO Metalline. Apparently, the defendant was to restore some historically important buildings at 51A and 53A Rosa Luxemburg St. in accordance with the Ministry’s project. Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Culture and the City of Yekaterinburg are involved in the suit as third parties. As a matter of fact, Onegin Plaza Business Center was put up by Metalline at 49 Rosa Luxemburg St., very close to the buildings in question. The company, whose business activity

The international rating agency recently affirmed all of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s ratings: the bank’s long- and short-term contractor’s credit ratings were affirmed at B- and C, respectively, while the bank’s national scale rating was affirmed at ruBBB-. What is more, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s ratings were taken off the agency’s CreditWatch list, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘The approval the bank’s ratings get, as well as the fact that they have been taken off the CreditWatch list, both result from the company’s sufficient ability to

Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport raised its jet fuel prices by 6.7% on September 18, 2009. The price now comes to 18,980 RUR per 1,000 kg, the spokesperson for the airport reports. ‘The price increase has to do with our suppliers raising their prices significantly. Besides, other Russian airports are doing the same,’ says the airport’s Deputy GD Anton Fedotov. Koltsovo last changed the jet fuel prices on August 23, 2009 when the price went up by 4.9% and reached 17,780 RUR per 1,000 kg.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to resume the hearing of the claim laid by Bank VTB against Pnevmostroymashina and PSM-Gidravlika on September 17, 2009. The plaintiff insists on being paid 51,833,114.55 RUR and on having the defendants’ mortgaged property arrested. The court’s last session closed with the plaintiff raising the claim to 53,000,509.48 RUR due to the increasing interest rate and the loan commission. The court actually satisfied this claim. In the meanwhile, Pnevmostroymashina applied for bankruptcy in September 2009, with debts to various creditors running up to over 700

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court started handling Unit-Stroy’s bankruptcy proceedings. The case was initiated on August 19, 2009, when Russkiye Samotsvety appealed to court, demanding that OOO Unit-Stroy should be declared insolvent. The application stated that the latter was unable to meet its creditors’ claims in full, since the liabilities amounted to more than Unit-Stroy’s assets were worth. Russkiye Samotsvety’s application was accepted by the court, so the case is to be considered on September 17, 2009.

Yekaterinburg’s Kirovskiy district court has partially satisfied the claims laid by Vladimir Serebrennikov and Pavel Kusyutin against Avtoland-Sever (the official dealer of Ford, Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo, Mitsubishi, and Mazda in Yekaterinburg) this week. The show room’s unhappy customers took legal action after they hadn’t received the automobiles they had already paid for in full. The plaintiffs therefore wanted the car delivery agreement to be canceled. They also insisted on being paid the full cost of the car, the bank loan interest, and the moral damage compensation. This is, in fact,

The net profit of Sverdlovsk Region’s major telecommunications provider declined by 2% in the first half of 2009 compared with the year before, reaching 1.658 billion RUR, the spokesperson for the company reports. For one, the cellular transmission revenues decreased by 3.6% in January-June 2009, whereas the income stemming from the central office area connection, the traffic hookup and inflow, and the agency services went down by 9%, 13.4%, and 35.7%, respectively. In addition, the other services revenues plunged by 58.3%. Finally, Uralsvyazinform’s operating profit rose by 6% in the first

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is still investigating the claim laid by Sverdlovsk Region’s Deputy Prosecutor against NOVA-Stroy, the local developer. The plaintiff demands that the company return a 2,244-square-meter land allotment at 18 Cherepanov St. to the City of Yekaterinburg. The court has already agreed to make it illegal for the defendant to carry out any transactions involving the disputed land allotment or to convey the right over this property to any third party. The Deputy Prosecutor explained that this was necessary since NOVA-Stroy might attempt to register its rights over

‘Now that we’ve analyzed the current retail market we can see how much it has shrunk lately. At the moment, only a quarter of last year’s dynamically developing players are still there, and the market has been stagnating for the last six months, with only small signs of recovery lately,’ Director of Art Properties Natalya Oreshina announced at a press conference coordinated by Commercial Real Estate magazine in Yekaterinburg. ‘Most companies understand that if they fail to develop now they will lose two to four years later on. However, they take daunting action. Adidas, for instance, is

The assets of URALROS Insurance Company will be sold by auction on October 26, 2009, Aval Group (the auctioneer) reports. The Federal Financial Markets Service revoked the insurer’s license in June 2009 and had the company undergo bankruptcy proceedings. The assets in question include, among other items, a 40,400-square-meter office at 14 Lenin St. in Krasnouralsk, Sverdlovsk Region; two one-room studios in Nizhniy Tagil and Rezh, and three automobiles, namely, VAZ 21074 made in 2007, Daewoo Nexia Gle made in 2007, and Renault Logan (SR) made in 2006. The price of the office and the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court rejected Bank VTB Severo-Zapad’s application regarding the arrest of their debtor’s property. The bank laid a claim against Rezh metallurgical plant because the latter failed to pay off its loan and the interest, all of which totaled to 15,648,305.18 RUR; the plaintiff also insisted on having the defendant’s mortgaged property arrested. In addition to this, Bank VTB asked for the arrest of the debtor’s money kept in and transferred into bank accounts, as well as for the arrest of any other assets that could compensate for the debt.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by LSR Ural Management Company against Mayak Corporation; the plaintiff wants to be paid 475,680 RUR and to retrieve its property from deforcement. LSR Ural applied to court in the hope of getting Mayak Corporation to return the machinery the latter keeps illegally, namely, three 300-kilogram lifting devices. The plaintiff also insists on getting 325,680 RUR as opportunity cost compensation. The application was accepted by Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court on August 11, 2009. The court actually agreed to have the disputed