Ural Airlines is going to introduce a new nonstop Moscow-Bratsk-Moscow flight on September 19, 2008. The flight will be operated three times a week, leaving Moscow at 8.15 PM on Fridays and Sundays and at 10.15 PM on Wednesdays, and arriving in Bratsk at 6.15 AM on Saturdays and Mondays and at 8.15 AM on Thursdays, respectively. The flight will take five hours. The plane then takes off in Bratsk at 10 AM and lands in Moscow at 10.40 AM on Thursdays and takes off and lands at 8 AM and 8.40 AM, respectively, on Mondays and Saturdays. The flight lasts 5 hours and forty minutes. The departure and

Ural public prosecution authorities for transportation made Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg resume rendering their ground handling service to Krasnoyarsk Airlines, the spokesperson for the authorities reports. The public prosecution authorities for transportation found out that Koltsovo Airport informed Krasnoyarsk Airlines via a cablegram on August 26, 2008 that the airport was going to stop rendering the airline any ground handling services on September 15, 2008 due to the air carrier’s unpaid bills. The authorities then warned the airport’s acting General Director that the violation of

MegaFon Ural nearly halved the price of their MegaFon Modem packages, so the set of a USB modem and MegaFon Modem Plus 2, a special tariff designed to be advantageous for mobile web users, comes to 2,300 RUR now (all taxes included). What is more, if you buy the package, you get an additional 300-megabyte Mobile Internet GPRS package for only 100 RUR (all taxes included) and they only charge you 2.2 RUR per each megabyte of traffic after you’ve used up this package, MegaFon Ural’s press officer reports. In addition, customers who buy the MegaFon Modem package will only have to start paying

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Pervouralsk Joint Stock Commercial Bank to sole traders for 1 t o3 years dropped by 25.13% (from 29.424 million RUR to 22.029 million RUR) in January-August 2008.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by Bank Uralfinance to Russian Federation constituents’ financial bodies and local governments went down by 58.46% (from 5 million RUR to 2.077 million RUR) in January-August 2008.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) raises its domestic market output on a yearly basis, as this is the home market that the company’s top managers think of as their top priority and strategically important one. The home market sales (including the delivery of metal goods to Byelorussia) have been dealt with by the Domestic Sales Administration for over ten years now. The Administration now runs several projects, streamlined along regional sales, branch sales, sales to car factories and to natural monopolies, sales of metal goods with coatings and of tin plate, and short-term planning.

‘At this troubled moment, a bank deposit is the most suitable way of investing one’s money for no longer than a year. It is the only widely available instrument that guarantees you both the income and all of your money back. The deposits have a certain fixed interest; what is more, they are insured by the state, which is a very weighty advantage,’ says Rus-Bank-Ural’s Head of Treasury Grigory Stepanov. ‘As far as short-term investment is concerned, virtually nothing can beat a bank deposit’s risk/profitability ratio. Unless you engage in stock gambling, everything else either takes much

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UralFinPromBank to sole traders for 91 to 180 days dropped by 50.90% (from 27.5 million RUR to 13.5 million RUR) in January-August 2008.

According to the findings of an interactive survey SKB-Bank conducted via its official website, people tend to think of the bank’s current ad campaign as ‘the people’s’ one. This was the epithet given to the ads by about five hundred respondents. SKB-Bank has been using the Soviet-style poster ads, united by a common slogan that reads, To the Bright Future! for over half a year now. ‘This advertising campaign fully meets all the goals we had in mind when launching it: the ads create a very memorable image of a bank as of a company close to the people, especially to the most financially active

‘We recently went for wholesale, rather than retail sales of our banking services in the business package format. This means our customers can now choose among several ‘lending schemes’ or ‘subscription offers’ depending on which package best suits their needs at the moment. A customer can pay once a month or even once a year and get the access to all the necessary services they won’t have to worry about paying for every time they need them. This approach benefits both the bank and the customer: our partners can get the kind of service that is as customized in accordance with their needs as

Ural Airlines announced they were going to reduce the fuel fee for Turkey-bound flights on September 10, 2008. The carrier’s latest provision 7.1-298 as of September 4, 2008 cancels their earlier one 7.1-203/1 as of June 26, 2008 and states that the fuel fee will come to ?31 per ticket for flights operated to Antalya or Dalaman from Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, or Perm using A 320 and TU 154M aircraft. If IL 86 is used, the fuel fee will amount to ?36. This means the fee will drop by 25.6%, 25.8%, and 20.5% for planes taking off in Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, and Perm, respectively. ‘The fuel

Starting September 5, 2008, MegaFon Ural, the major mobile operator, is going to update its subscribers on the exact time. The company’s customer can thus always find out the exact time within the region they are currently in, the company’s press officer reports. To use the service, one has to call the USSD number 166#; the offer is available for all of MegaFonUral’s subscribers located within the home network coverage area and costs .5 RUR (all taxes included).

The Far Eastern division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) examined the premises of Baltika-Khabarovsk (Baltika Beer Company’s subsidiary) and detected a number of violations related to maintenance of boiling facilities and electric installations. The inspectors also checked the condition and maintenance of hazardous facilities and chemical engineering units. The inspection resulted in a special surveillance report, while the company’s management was ordered to eliminate all the violations within a fixed time period.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was rated Russia’s 34th largest loan broker by RosBusinessConsulting. The agency’s experts looked into the banks’ MICEX and RTS trading activity involving Russian companies’ securities in July 2008. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s trading turnover came to $281.27m, which was nearly 1.5 times better than $188.01m-turnover in June 2008. What is more, the bank was given the 25th position on RTS FORTS Top 100 players list in July 2008. RosBusinessConsulting did not employ any market turnover figures for this one in the research,

Ural Airlines’ Commercial Director Kirill Skuratov signed an order decreasing the fuel fee for the company’s Egypt-bound flights on September 5, 2008 after Hurghada Airport has reduced its jet fuel prices for the third time already. The fuel fees have dropped several times over the last three months; the latest price of $42 (987 RUR) is a result of a 34.4% reduction since the beginning of the summer season. As for the Egyptian airports, after the two earlier decreases their jet fuel prices went down by 13% altogether. ‘Most market players felt strongly opposed to the fixed fuel fee price

Sverdlovsk Region’s dwellers owe local banks more than 131 billion RUR worth of ruble loan payments, the Bank of Russia’s official website states in the regional supplement to the banking statistics bulletin. The data are valid as of July 1, 2008. The region’s legal entities owe banks over 287 billion RUR at the moment.

‘After the outbreak of the Ossetian-Georgian conflict and the opening of the Olympics the ruble turned into devaluated currency in comparison with the other ones, especially the U.S. dollar. This has to do with Russia’s increasingly strained relations with the rest of the world,’ Eurogreen Investment Company’s General Director Evgeniy Kostarev said to UrBC. According to Tomorrow’s calculations, the ruble/dollar exchange rate came to 25.13 RUR per 1 dollar on September 4, 2008. This exceeds the official figures for the day by.26 RUR. In the meantime, the dollar rate against the ruble has been

Investbank Joint Stock Commercial Bank’s Supervisory Board released the BOD Chairman Alexei Sveshnikov from office; besides, Sveshnikov is no longer going to be the BOD member. First Deputy Chairman Maxim Skochko is to become acting Chairman on September 8, 2008. Maxim Skochko was entitled to acting on the bank’s behalf without designation of authority.

Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (part of ChTPZ Group) underwent re-certification audit by TUF CERT and proved the compliance of its EN and DIN standard-based boiler tubes with the European directive 97/23 and AD 2000 W0/TRD100 technical requirements. ‘We needed to have our weldless tubes and pipes certified in accordance with these requirements due to the stable demand for these goods; besides, one has to have such a certificate in order to deliver one’s produce to the EU,’ the enterprise’s press officer says. The certificating body’s experts examined the enterprise’s main production shops

‘A bank’s customer is normally interested in having the services customized as much as possible to suit their unique needs and in getting a special treatment. A bank, in its turn, would like to have its services universalized, as every out-of-the-ordinary solution makes it harder to get things standardized and thus results in greater transaction expenses. Ironically, both the bank and the customer will end up paying for this in the end,’ says URSA Bank’s Deputy GD Daniil Sandler. The bank executive feels the solution to the problem lies in thinking up new ways of mutually beneficial