In order to meet its customers’ needs and for their greater convenience, Ural Airlines will operate some additional Yekaterinburg-Anapa-Yekaterinburg flights on June 17, 2008 and June 28, 2008. This is believed to be a good offer for travelers going to or from the south of Russia. On Tuesday, June 17, 2008, the plane is to leave Yekaterinburg at 5.15 PM and to arrive in Anapa at 6.30 PM, and then the aircraft is to take off in Anapa at 8 PM and to land in Yekaterinburg at 1.15 AM on Wednesday, June 18, 2008. On Saturday, June 28, 2008, the plane takes off from Yekaterinburg at 4.30 PM and

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of private individuals’ deposits and other investments in Pervouralsk Joint Stock Commercial Bank valid for 31 to 90 days went down by 55.80% (from 6.277 million RUR to 2.774 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

An extraordinary general meeting held at a Nizhniy Tagil-based plant dealing in production of boilers and heaters resulted in early termination of powers of all of the enterprise’s BOD members. Boris Dyakonov, Yegor Konyukhovskiy, Yuri Bystrov, Valeriy Petaev, Vladimir Belov, and Mark Kravchenko were elected the new BOD members. This means that Chairman of Bank24.ru’s Supervisory Board Sergey Lapshin is not going to become the plant’s new BOD member.

UrBC, Magnitogorsk (Chelyabinsk area), 17.06.2008. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK)’s mechanics’ team started assembling the Chinese DHI-DCW Group’s cranes for plate mill 5000 currently under construction. Prior to assembling the cranes, the enterprise sent two mechanics to China in order for them to learn about the particularities of these cranes’ design. Their job is now supervised by the representatives of the producer factory. DHI is to supply twenty-six cranes to MMK, four of which are to deliver slabs to the baking furnace, one of which is to service the water descaling system,

The amount of cargo handled by Russian Railway Public Company went up by 3.9% over the five months of 2008; the company has transported a total of 570 million tons of cargo since the beginning of the year and some 115 million tons of cargo in May 2008 (.2% better than a month earlier). In May 2008, the growing volume of cargo operations was most noticeable at Kaliningrad Railways, with their 12.4% increase in freight turnover, Sakhalin Railways, with their 11.2% increase, East Siberian Railways, with their 9.6% increase, and South Ural Railways, with their 6.8% increase.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of nongovernmental financial organizations’ deposits in Perviy Respublikanskiy Bank valid for 91 to 180 days went down by 85.29% (from 34 million RUR to 5 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

Sverdlovsk Region’s Ministry of Trade, Food, and Services hosted a number of business meetings with top executives of Metro’s Moscow headquarters and heads of forty-five regional enterprises that deal in manufacturing of both foods and nonfood items and wholesale trade. The meeting was coordinated by Minister Vera Solovieva, who said that Sverdlovsk Region’s two Metro Cash & Carry stores had thirty-seven agreements with the local producers (including thirty contracts signed with plants and seven contracts signed with the wholesalers). The Minister felt signing an agreement with Metro was

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank to for-profit SROs for 31 to 90 days went down by 61.69% (from 495.91 million RUR to 189.961 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Vladimir Kritskiy and acting Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region’s Department of Internal Affairs Galina Karabonalova coordinated a briefing on the housing problems of law-enforcement officers. ‘A tender was held in July 2004 to decide who was going to put up the apartment block in Bazoviy Lane meant for our officers. The land allotment belongs to Yekaterinburg’s Department of Internal Affairs; as for the builder, Mayak Corporation was chosen. The developer promised to put up four apartment buildings with the total area of at least 52,000 square meters. 25% of

The volume of SKB-Bank’s net assets increased by 2 billion RUR over one month and came to 33.15 billion RUR on June 1, 2008 compared with only 31.11 billion RUR on May 1, 2008. The bank’s loan portfolio amounted to more than 23 billion RUR, thus doubling between June 2007 and June 2008. The bank had managed to attract 29 billion RUR in terms of deposits and investments by June 1, 2008, which is 3 billion RUR better than a month earlier. The figure includes 11.5 billion RUR worth of private individuals’ investments. SKB-Bank’s own funds come to more than 5 billion RUR at the moment, which is

Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works (aka NTMK, part of Evraz Group) organized a series of celebrations dedicated to the 45th anniversary of Russia’s first LD plant. The events were attended by employees of over thirty metallurgical enterprises and research institutes based in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, and other Russian cities, as well as representatives of metallurgical and machine-building enterprises located in Ukraine, Austria, and Germany. The agenda of the festivities included a solemn meeting devoted to the launch of the steel-smelting converter – the second fully renovated converter out

Chelyabinsk-based SOT, a company dealing in production of pipeline bends and part of Rimera (ChTPZ Group’s O&G maintenance division), has been successfully audited by TUF International Rus for its compliance with the ISO 9001:2000 quality management requirements. The annual audit helps the enterprise to find quality management system’s improvement strategies. SOT keeps on working on the better quality of products and greater customer satisfaction. ‘Rimera pays a lot of attention to the quality of its produce, this is why all of its divisions have some special technical development

1,127 crediting organizations with a total of 3,940 subsidiaries have been registered within Russia by June 1, 2008, the Central Bank’s official website states. This figure signals an ongoing tendency for the number of banks to go down: there were 1,129 banks with 3,492 subsidiaries in Russia as recently as May 1, 2008. At the same time, while the number of banks is on the decrease, the volume of their authorized capital keeps rising. The figure reached 780 billion RUR on June 1, 2008 compared with 775 billion RUR in May 2008 and 773 billion RUR in April 2008. As for the distribution

Ural Airlines has recently received another A 320 airplane as part of the carrier’s five-year operational leasing agreement. Prior to arriving in Yekaterinburg, the aircraft was used by Air France and is now in the pink of condition. The plane will be used for operating Ural Airlines’ summertime flights as soon as on June 11, 2008, with the ‘maiden flight’ bound for Khojend, Tajikistan. Airbus will then be used for flying to Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk, Moscow, and the CIS. A 320 airplanes are often used for operating chartered flights as well, since the noise level is so low that

Chelyabinsk Region keeps working on the region’s socioeconomic development forecasts for 2008-2011. The issues related to drawing up the forecasts were discussed at the Governor’s meeting with the regional mayors on June 11, 2008. The forecasts are prepared in compliance with the federal and regional requirements and are based on the data provided by the executive authorities, municipal councils, and large enterprises. The region’s ongoing economic growth is one of the forecast’s most positive determinants. Chelyabinsk Region’s industrial production rose by 10.1% over the first five months of

Chelyabinsk Region, alongside with tall the other Russian Federation’s constituent entities, has to gradually switch from the licensing system to the self-regulatory organizations system in the building industry between July 1, 2008 and January 1, 2010. On June 11, 2008, a working group was set up in order to develop a single self-regulatory organization for the whole region’s building industry, First Deputy Governor Vladimir Dyatlov announced in the course of PROMASS (the Organization of Employers of Chelyabinsk Region)’s meeting. Some other points on the meeting’s agenda included a report

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by VUZ Bank to private individuals for 91 to 180 days went down by 44.46% (from 2.086 million RUR to 661,000 RUR) in January-May 2008.

United Company RUSAL has successfully launched test production of its colloidal anode paste. The paste is a key component of a new project aimed at developing a unique and entirely environmentally harmless aluminum production technology. The project is expected to require a total of $25m worth of investments. The spokesperson for the company reports the main idea behind the project that is being implemented by UC RUSAL’s Engineering and Construction division is the creation of a perfect Soederberg reduction cell that would affect the environment as little as possible, use raw materials very

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in SberInvestBank valid for 1 to 3 years plummeted by 90.94% (from 27.6 million RUR to 2.5 million RUR) in January-May 2008.

Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation (consisting of Yekaterinburg-based Uralmashzavod and Orsk-based ORMETO-YUMZ Heavy Engineering Joint Stock Co) is going to make a presentation on its oil rigs, pipes, and winches that the company is manufacturing at the moment. O&G enterprises from Russia and the near abroad were invited to the event. Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz, Eurasia, Gazpromneft, NOVATEK, TNK-BP, SSK, SGK, Belarusneft, Ukrgazdobycha, Kazmunaigaz, and Turkmengaz are expected to come. Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation intends to exhibit its engineering projects on the drilling