Yekaterinburg-based Stroycomplex-2000 was blacklisted by the Federal Antimonopoly Service as a dishonest supplier for the company’s trying to avoid signing a contract, the Service’s official website states. Stroycomplex-2000 won a tender related to giving overhaul to the slate roofing of an apartment building in Gorkiy St., Monetniy, and was thus supposed to have signed a respective contract worth 199.879 million RUR. Nevertheless, the company backed out of the agreement later.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank Uralfinance to private individuals for 181 days to 1 year went down by 53.77% (from 6.269 million RUR to 2.898 million RUR) in January-July 2008.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UniCreditBank to private individuals for 91 to 180 days plummeted by 97.92% (from 128.385 million RUR to 2.670 million RUR) in January-July 2008.

Ural Airlines is already offering tickets for its international wintertime flights for sale, the company’s press officer reports. The winter timetable will still include flights to Milan and Hainan and two flights bound for the Middle East, namely, United Arab Emirates and Israel. Besides, more flights to Bangkok will be offered: the flight will be operated twice rather than just once a week throughout the whole winter until the end of March 2009. As flights to various European destinations are still very popular with tourists, Ural Airlines will offer its customers three flights a week to

‘We’ve just launched a new product for our business customers: the offer is targeted at large holdings and actually consists in using Metcombank as the company’s outsource for treasury management. This means the bank will deal in controlling the budgetary expenditures, managing the liquid assets within the holding, and financial administration,’ Metcombank’s Chairman Rustam Mamatov reports. ‘This is a ‘bulky’ and large-scale product, but we’ve got three big holdings using the product’s pilot version already. We are about to finish the trial run stage and are getting ready to launch the

URSA Bank was Russia’s fifteenth largest bank in terms of assets in the first half of 2008. This is a step forward compared to the bank’s 17th position in the rating of the country’s largest banks a year earlier. The bank’s assets have gone up by 23.2% since the beginning of the year and thus reached 220.03 billion RUR, thus securing the company the fourth best position in the rating based on the asset growth dynamics. The volume of deposit investments made by URSA Bank’s private customers reached 40.1 billion RUR in June 2008, which exceeded the figures for January 2008 by 12.7% and provided

SKB-Bank set up a new office in Tyumen Region: the outlet is located at 10 Lenin St. right in the heart of Yugorsk. The office welcomes both private customers and businesses from 9 AM to 6.30 PM on weekdays (and from 10 AM to 4 PM on Saturdays) and from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekdays, respectively. SKB-Bank now runs more than ninety subsidiaries in twenty different parts of Russia; the bank’s offices can be found anywhere between Irkutsk in the east and Kaliningrad in the west.

Baltika beer is now missing from quite a few of Yekaterinburg’s pubs and bars for reasons related not only to the product’s quality and market positioning but also to the fact that the supplier’s terms appear to be less advantageous than what their rivals offer. ‘We do not work with Baltika because we prefer to cooperate with suppliers who offer better terms,’ says Alexander Zhulanov, who runs Out sports bar. As a matter of fact, you will no longer find Baltika beer on the menu of many local cafes and bars. Moreover, the brand does not seem to be very popular even with customers of strong

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin signed a provision on the coordination of an interschool tutorial centers contest, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. There are currently fifty-three such centers in Chelyabinsk Region, over forty of which have already applied for the contest. The centers will compete in five categories: school teams, innovational IT, distance learning programs for schoolchildren and their parents, and innovational pedagogy. The application package may include not only the centers’ projects developed over the last three years but also letters of support from

Russian regions must provide the housing allotments with engineering infrastructure, Deputy Minster for Regional Development Sergey Kruglik said in the course of a press conference. The minister reported the Russian Government would subsidize the regions’ housing programs as soon as in the year 2009. At the same time, Minister for Regional Development Dmitriy Kozak announced during a videoconference a day earlier that subsidies would only be given to regions with multi-faceted area development programs. Apart from this, the regions must deal in some state-private partnership projects

The country’s stock market has been gradually going down over the last couples of months, while its indices keep falling. Some analysts believe this has to do with the pressure exerted on the market by the lack of good news from the U.S. and the plummeting of oil prices. Investors feel this state of the market can play into the hands of the country’s banking bankers: as investing in securities grows increasingly risky, banks can fill in the niche for private investments by offering a guaranteed profit on deposits. SKB-Bank’s Sales Support Director Denis Belogurov says most banks were getting

Russian metallurgical sector’s unit investment trusts keep falling: according to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of August 4-5, 2008, the share price of Troika Dialog-Metallurgy (Troika Dialog Management Company) dropped by 4.66%, that of Trubnaya Ploschad – Russian Metallurgy (Bank of Moscow Management Company) went down by 4.23%, that of BCS Metallurgy Fund (BrokerCreditService Management Company) decreased by 4.20%, that of Rus-Capital-Metallurgy (Rus-Capital Management Company) dropped by 4.03%, and that of Alfa Capital Metallurgy (Alfa

Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Labor and Economy reports the town of Berezovskiy (with Vyacheslav Brozovskiy elected as Mayor) has been showing a noticeable decrease in terms of its socioeconomic development. In 2006, the town was the region’s No.9 in terms of socioeconomic potential, while a year later its rating dropped to the 12th position. Experts believe this trend to go down will continue in 2008. The regional municipalities’ ratings were compiled on the basis of their socioeconomic development’s growth or decrease figures in 2007 (in comparison with the year 2006).

‘The latest hydraulic pressure testing of pipelines carried out by TGK-9 detected fifty-three different defects in them, eleven of which still haven’t been eliminated. Nevertheless, all the repairs will probably have been completed by September 15, 2008,’ TGK-9 Production Director in Sverdlovsk Region Leonid Soloviev said in the course of a press conference. The executive also reported some 7.5 kilometers of pipelines would be replaced altogether. So far, only four kilometers of pipelines were actually replaced, however.

‘There are 429 car mechanics in Yekaterinburg at the moment, yet they find themselves unable to do all the work than needs to be done. The recent monitoring of this market segment has shown that people have to wait for several days before they can have their car serviced. Besides, the number of drivers keeps going up. This year, we’ve achieved the ratio of 360 cars per each 1,000 dwellers, while the figure comes to 500 cars per each 1,000 dwellers in Europe. These figures are rather high and mean the city’s automobile services market has to meet some very strict requirements,’ says Deputy

Sverdlovsk Region’s law-enforcement and the Federal Security officers detained the accomplice of Yekaterinburg Meatpacking Plant’s raiding takeover Vyacheslav Latypov, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District Department of Internal Affairs reports. Vyacheslav Latypov is believed to actively support the partners of the notorious local entrepreneur Pavel Fedulev in their attack of Yekaterinburg Meatpacking plant that led to theft of the company’s multi-million assets. The businessman is now located in the detention ward. The plant was attacked in November 2006 when its owner Pavel Fedulev was

Academic, the large-scale residential area that RenovaStroyGroup-Akademicheskoye is currently putting up in the south-west of Yekaterinburg, may become the city’s eighth administrative district, the spokesperson for the city council reports. Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy and Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel have already discussed the idea during their joint inspection of the city’s roads under construction.

Ural State Technical University (USTU), Ural State University (USU), and the Ural branch of RAS (Russian Academy of Sciences) applied for federal status that will unite them into a single federal university. The Russian Government approved of the Ministry of Education and Science’s project regarding the introduction and performance of federal universities on June 23, 2008. In addition, the local press published the regional government’s provision on the support of the Ural Federal University project. The application will have been fully considered by the end of August or beginning of

Ural Airlines held preliminary negotiations with Boeing Corporation regarding the possibility of acquiring a new wide-body aircraft, the airline’s press officer reports. Boeing’s representatives pointed out two types of liners that would meet the carrier’s demands: these are B 767 and B 787 aircraft in various modifications. At the same time, Ural Airlines might actually choose the European Airbus as an alternative to Boeing. The carrier has already considered some offers to buy their Airbus A 330 airplane, but the signing of purchasing agreement was postponed until all the other options were

Russian Vice Premier Alexander Zhukov chaired a meeting on the implementation of the national project known as Affordable and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens in the first half of 2008. Alexander Zhukov believes the so-called sporadic housing construction is no longer a solution to the country’s housing problems. ‘Multi-faceted area development projects have the greatest potential at the moment. I think the days of sporadic housing construction are gone,’ he said. The official reports a lot more housing was put up in 2006-2007 compared with the previous years: 60.9 million square