Aeroflot Russian Airlines canceled the agreement it had signed with Aeroflot Don, its daughter enterprise, and announced the two carriers would no longer operated flights together, the spokesperson for Aeroflot reports. Both airlines started using their own code and flag on September 20, 2008. Besides, D9 745/746 Moscow-Yekaterinburg-Moscow, D9 733/734 Moscow-Yekaterinburg-Moscow, and D9 899/900 Moscow-Chelyabinsk-Moscow flights that were formerly operated by Aeroflot will be operated by Aeroflot Don under D9 code using Aeroflot Don’s B737-500 aircraft from September 20, 2008 till October 25,

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank24.r to private individuals for 181 days to 1 year went down by 44.89% (from 27.573 million RUR to 15.195 million RUR) in January-August 2008.

‘Some special asset management centers will be set up in places where there are a lot of industrial enterprises, since it’s very difficult to run a huge corporation from a single center,’ First Deputy GD of Rostechnologii State Corporation Alexei Aleshin announced at a conference devoted to the Mid-Urals’ machine-building industry’s modernization and development in 2008-2020. Alexei Aleshin explained that nineteen holdings would be set up within the defense industry and at least four holdings would be created for the civil industries.

‘Raising the maximum insurance sum on deposits up to 700,000 RUR is a logical and long-awaited step on the way to the deposit insurance system’s further development. In fact, the sum has already been raised several times before,’ SKB-Bank’s Sales Support Director Denis Belogurov said to UrBC. Meanwhile, the state-run Deposit Insurance Agency’s Board of Directors admitted recently that it was possible to increase the amount from 400,000 RUR to 700,000 RUR. ‘People have been keeping increasingly more money on deposits over the last few years, so raising the insurance sum is definitely a timely

‘There are certain criteria to use when deciding on a dwellings’ affordability. If 30% to 40% of the population can afford to buy a place at the existing price, the housing in the country is really affordable. This covers purchases made with the help of mortgages and savings plans, too,’ Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s CEO Rustem Galeev says. ‘Some people keep wondering if those millions of square meters of housing in Yekaterinburg’s future Academic district will enjoy any demand at all. I am convinced that the answer is ‘yes’, as available housing is still a problem in Yekaterinburg. Thousands

‘The state of events on the global financial markets makes it difficult to apply for syndicated loans. The fact that UralTransBank is planning to get one is rather surprising, as small banks don’t have any access to the international capital market at the moment,’ Unicom Partner Investment and Finance Company’s executive Sergey Kaliberda said to an UrBC reporter. UralTransBank’s Chairman Valeriy Zavodov said in the course of several interviews that the bank intended to get a syndicated loan on the international capital market in February or March 2009. Zavodov explained the company was

Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy met Auchan’s representatives to look into the chain store’s development strategy in Yekaterinburg and in Russia on the whole. Auchan’s executives said they intended to set up four more hypermarkets in Yekaterinburg and were looking for the remaining two land allotments at the moment. One of them needs to be located next to Chelyabinsk highway, the other one should be found in the city’s east end. The company asked the mayor to help them find the suitable sites.

‘The bank runs two subsidiaries in Yekaterinburg now; they are called Ural and Yekaterinburg, the latter being based on Impexbank’s subsidiary after the bank merged with Raiffeisen Bank in November 2007. The decision to close down this subsidiary has been brought about by our efforts to improve on the bank’s local subsidiary network. In fact, having two subsidiaries of one and the same bank within one city is economically inexpedient; it makes much more sense to have one subsidiary with several offices. This is why Raiffeisen Bank will only have one Ural subsidiary in Yekaterinburg starting

‘The current state of the stock market actually opens up a number of opportunities. Apart from focusing on the retail services, METCOMBANK has always been working with big customers and was able to prove its good liquidity and dependability, so we still retain a lot of lending potential at the time of a crisis. Therefore the bank can now use this opportunity to expand its client base thanks to the fact that both companies and private individuals are looking for a reliable bank with financially transparent and serious stockholders. Moreover, METCOMBANK can also build up on the assets used to

‘The global stock markets are closed for the Russian issuers’ stock or syndicated loan coordinators at the moment. The only exception to the rule is the large banking consortiums, so getting a syndicated loan this year is extremely complicated, if not altogether impossible,’ claims Accord Invest Investment and Finance Company’s Deputy GD Konstantin Selyanin. Meanwhile, UralTransBank’s Chairman Valeriy Zavodov said in the course of several interviews that the bank intended to get a syndicated loan on the international capital market in February or March 2009. Zavodov explained the company was

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel congratulated Renate Schimkoreit on her becoming Germany’s Consul General in Yekaterinburg and spoke about Sverdlovsk Region and Germany’s proactive cooperation in the economic, cultural, and social fields during their meeting. The Governor suggested that they could draft some joint agreements involving the region and some of the German provinces, for instance, Bavaria, as Sverdlovsk Region has all the potential needed for working successfully with it in the industrial field. At the end of the meeting Governor Eduard Rossel and Dr. Renate

ChTPZ Meta has recently Lindemann ЕС-1034 hydraulic sharing press in its Meta Chelyabinsk plant (part of ChTPZ Meta Group). ‘The launch of the new equipment will make it possible to improve on the end product’s quality and to process all kind of scrap metal, which means more of it will be collected in Chelyabinsk Region and the harmful environmental impact caused by storing and recycling of iron will be reduced,’ the company’s press officer says. Head of ChTPZ Meta Yaroslav Zhdan says launching Metso’s equipment is a great step on the way to all of the Group’s division major technical

Sverdlovsk Region’s Ministry of Economics and Labor reports the gross regional product will keep rising by 8% a year on average and will reach approximately 1,666 billion RUR in 2011, compared with only 800.7 billion RUR in 2007 and the prospective 1,004.9 billion RUR in 2008. Experts believe the manufacturing branch (including food and processing industries) and production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water will develop most rapidly, while the retail trade and public catering industry’s turnovers are expected to grow by 17% to 22%. The regional salary fund is likely

IncoreMedia and MegaFon-Ural, the mobile operator, are going to launch a special offer dubbed MegaZachet from September 22, 2008 till October 21, 2008. Upon entering the SIM menu’s Entertainment rubric (except for Games/Java section), you get a text message regarding the offer and a part of a certain word alongside with the content you’ve ordered. After you put the five parts of the word, you can forward it to service number 5016 via a text message and get the media content as a prize, provided you get the word right, of course. The first two senders will get an iPod Nano 4Gb player,

‘Mechel-Bank has gone up by fifty-two positions in RBC.Rating’s ranking of Russian banks in the first half of 2008. This means it is now one of Russia’s fastest-growing banks, as we were able to double our business in less than a year. We appreciate it greatly that the bank has made such progress by its 18th anniversary, so we intend to keep this pace up and make it to the Greater Urals’ top five banks over the next five years,’ says Mechel-Bank’s Chair Elena Nesterova. ‘Both Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk Regions have recently adopted development programs for 2008-2020, and our primary challenge

The official cost of living in Sverdlovsk Region determined for the last quarter of 2008 came to 4,723 RUR a month, which is 861 RUR, or 22.3% greater than a year earlier. As far as the budgeting structure is concerned, the food expenses went up by 29.9%, fixed bills and fees rose by 25%, the cost of paid services increased by 18.2%, and non-food items spending grew by 10.4%.

Grand Capital, a pharmaceutical holding, acquired 50.46% of Irbit chemical pharmaceutical plant’s common stock. The company did not use to own any of Irbit plant’s shares before.

Kommersant-Dengi came up with its rating of Russia’s Top 100 Banks (in terms of their capital volume as of July 1, 2008). SKB-Bank thus became Sverdlovsk Region’s No.1 and was given the 71st position among the top hundred, the bank’s press officer says. The magazine reports SKB-Bank’s own funds amounted to more than 5 billion RUR on July 1, 2008, which exceeds the bank’s nearest rivals’ performance by 1 billion RUR. This month, SKB-Bank’s own funds have already reached 5.38 billion RUR. SKB-Bank was also one of Sverdlovsk Region’s top three banks in terms of assets. The bank’s assets came to

RBC.Rating has recently come up with the Russian banks’ ranking based on the volume and number of loans offered to small and medium-scale businesses in the first half of 2008. Only two Ural banks were actually featured among the top forty companies on the list, SKB-Bank’s press officer says. The agency’s analysts report the SME lending volumes kept increasing in the six months of 2008; it went up by 22% and amounted to 1.322 trillion RUR. The number of loans given to small enterprises nearly doubled. SKB-Bank topped Ural Federal District-based banks’ rating in terms of the number of loans

URSA Bank has already sold 10, 110 business packages to legal entities and sole traders within a year of launching the offer. The offer that comes in a cardboard box is a set of options that provides for the cash transactions and settlement operations and an easier loan-getting procedure for businesses. The program was launched at the end of September 2007 in Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg. Now the offer is available in ninety-two Russian cities. ‘The sales rise by 15% a month on average. We’ve already provided our customers with 2.5 billion worth of loan limits under the business package