Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin spoke to his deputies and ministers about the ways of helping the victims of Korkinskaya mine methane ignition accident. According to the Minister for Radiation and Environmental Safety, all the necessary measures have already been taken: two heavily hurt miners have been transferred to Chelyabinsk burn center, while those less seriously wounded received medical assistance as well. The mine is now operating as usual, while an ad hoc committee is looking into the causes of the ignition. In addition to discussing the mining accident, the Governor

After Alfa-Bank has closed down the customer forum on Bank Severnaya Kazna’s official website, the bank’s clients set up a new online communication platform, a number of Yekaterinburg Internet forums report. The new forum can be found at Bank Severnaya Kazna’s official website’s forum stopped operating on April 2, 2009. According to the bank’s official report, the decision was taken ‘in order to make the bank-customer communication more systematic.’ ‘On the one hand, the forum kept getting increasingly fewer visitors; on the other hand, more visitors checked out our Q&A section,’ Bank

The Hellenic Republic’s visa center is going to start operating in Yekaterinburg this April, the Ambassador of Greece to Russia informed Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. Meanwhile, Minister of Tourism of Greece Kostas Markopulos announced at a press conference in Moscow that thanks to a new visa-issuing system launched in September 2008 the whole procedure would only take forty-eight hours. The Ambassador says the Greek authorities are currently considering the idea of setting up the Republic’s Consulate General in Yekaterinburg.

Uralros Insurance Company will probably get expelled from the Russian Union of Automobile Insurers after Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court has sustained the claim laid by the Union against Uralros regarding the membership fees. In fact, Uralros Insurance Company never paid its membership fee for the third quarter of 2008 and failed to respond to the Union management’s inquiries. At the end of the day, the insurance company’s GD announced to the Union’s representative that he was not at all willing to pay the fees, so Uralros was put on the ‘To Be Expelled’ list. Despite the defendant’s

Bank Severnaya Kazna’s equipment is to undergo some technical upgrades from 6.30 AM to 8 AM on April 2, 2009 (local time). This means that the bank’s cards will not get serviced at the bank’s ATMs or cash desks as well as at the other banks’ ATMs and cash desks as well as POS terminals during that period of time. The cards won’t be handled by the Internet Bank system for the time being either. Besides, no other banks’ cards will be accepted at Bank Severnaya Kazna’s ATMs and terminals for these several hours.

The net profit of Severskiy Pipe Works amounted to 1.4 billion RUR last year (in accordance with the Russian accounting standards). This figure falls short of the one for 2007 by 1.53 billion RUR, TMK’s press officer reports. In the meantime, TMK’s net loss reached 9 billion RUR in 2008 in comparison with the 19.2-billion-ruble net profit in 2007 (in accordance with the Russian accounting standards).

Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) came up with its enterprises’ financial performance report for 2008, compiled in accordance with the Russian accounting standards. TMK’s net loss reached 9 billion RUR in 2008 in comparison with the 19.2-billion-ruble net profit in 2007 (in accordance with the Russian accounting standards). The company’s net loss amounted to 7.4 billion RUR in the last quarter of 2008 compared with the net profit of 11.4 billion RUR a year earlier. The company reports last year’s losses have to do with the dropping share price of TMK’s daughter enterprises and the need to

‘We’ve already sent about a dozen letters to METRO Cash & Carry’s management, including both the Regional Manager of Store 30 and the General Director for Russia; two of these letters contained a detailed action plan that could help them cope with the problem. However, none of our letters have been replied to,’ Chairman of Yekaterinburg Trade Networks trade union Alexander Brusnitsyn said to an UrBC reporter. In the meantime, METRO Cash & Carry’s Yekaterinburg branch set up a trade union (a member of the Russian Federation Trade Union’s local division) on March 5, 2009. A day later,

The net loss of Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) reached $481m in the last quarter of 2008, while its net profit dropped by 110.8% against the third quarter of 2008, NLMK’s financial report for 2008 states. The enterprise’s net debt amounted to $841.5 million on December 31, 2008, while the available monetary resources totaled to $2.16bn and the financial debt to $3bn (including $1.1bn worth of short-term debts and $1.9bn of long-term ones). NLMK’s accounts receivable came to $1.488bn, which fell short of the figures for 2007 by 12%. NLMK says their losses have been brought about by

Following the order of Head of Russian Government Vladimir Putin, a governmental committee on the metallurgical industry development has been set up. The committee is chaired by Vice Premier Igor Sechin. One of the committee members, MMK Management Company’s President and BOD Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov said the new body was essential to solving the industry’s problems. He feels this industry has been affected by the crisis the most, so it’s important for the government and the major market players to come up with a coordinated crisis-defying

‘There is not a single bank in Sverdlovsk Region that has yet had to confiscate its borrowers’ property. However, banks do use their customers’ estate to back up their loans,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced in the course of a press conference in Yekaterinburg. For one, Ukraina Hotel next to Yekaterinburg-Koltsovo highway that is currently under construction has already been mortgaged to Sberbank of Russia, since Uralzarubezhservis (the builder) doesn’t have the necessary resources. ‘As for the banking sector on the whole, banks tend to merge and consolidate, while

The 17th European Banking Financial Forum dedicated to finding solutions to the ongoing financial crisis took place in Prague, the Czech Republic, on March 24-26, 2009. The Forum comprised the traditional ‘Russian sessions’ devoted to West-East and East-West investments. On the first day of the forum, URSA Bank’s Deputy GD Vladimir Mekhryakov made a report on MDM-Bank and URSA Bank’s merger as a way to creating Russia’s leading all-purpose bank. He spoke about the strategic reasons for the merger and walked the audience through the structure of the transaction. ‘The current circumstances are

URSA Bank’s Board of Directors decided to hold the annual general meeting at 3 PM on May 5, 2009. The meeting is to take place at 54 Inskaya St. in Novosibirsk. There are going to be ten points on the meeting’s agenda, including the approval of the annual report and of the elected auditor as well as electing the Board of Directors and issues related to lst year’s profit distribution. The bank’s BOD suggested that the stockholders direct 181,333 RUR to pay the share dividends and $22.733 million to pay the preferred stock dividends.

The net profit of Klyuchevsk Ferrous Alloys Works dropped by 116.857 million RUR, or 388.18% (from 30.104 million RUR to -86.753 million RUR). The company explains this has to do with their lowered performance brought about by the global economic instability and the troubles caused by the soaring U.S. dollar exchange rate.

Russkiye Motory Sila Holding Company, Metallsnab, Uralplastic, and Uralenergomontazh have been placed on the list of companies owing more than 1 million RUR to the state (i.e. the Russian Federation budget), Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Tax Service reports. All in all, the list comprised 341 Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises on March 15, 2009.

Vtoroye Sverdlovskoye Aviapredpriyatiye, Uralvtorchermet, Yekaterinburgskiye Lesniye Machiny, and Sverdlvtormet have been placed on the list of companies owing more than 1 million RUR to the state (i.e. the Russian Federation budget), Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Tax Service reports. All in all, the list comprised 341 Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises on March 15, 2009.

Valery Rodin has recently been elected the General Director of the Urals’ Interregional Distributional Network Company. The decision to this extent was made by the company’s Board of Directors. At the same time, former GD Alexei Bobrov chose to resign ahead of schedule. Bobrov announced his upcoming leave as early as March 26, 2009 at a press conference in Yekaterinburg.

The officers of Sverdlovsk Region’s economic crimes division of Ministry of Internal Affairs carried out an investigation resulting in uncovering the criminal activity of Uralstroy-1, the local builder, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Ministry of Internal Affairs reports. According to the existing line of inquiry, Uralstroy-1 signed agreements with both natural persons and legal entities regarding their investment in would-be apartments and offices. Later on, the builder allegedly converted the customers’ property rights over the future estate to some third party by

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) looked in the success of the enterprise’s compliance with the collective agreement in 2008. One thing MMK invests in is improving on the city’s cultural infrastructure by maintaining two culture centers hosting over 1,500 various clubs’ members. 850 events were organized for the enterprise’s employees last year alone, with 25.78 million RUR worth of investments. What is more, MMK provides for a set of health-improvement and PE measures through organizing sports events and summer and winter championships. All in all, more than 12,500 people took part

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin’s vacation began on March 30, 2009. His First Deputy Governor Andrei Kosilov is going to be acting Governor for the time being, the spokesperson for the Governor reports.