‘Our retail food market appears to be developing quite successfully at the moment, and Yekaterinburg’s chain stores are competing very confidently and professionally both within and outside the city. They are now entering Sverdlovsk Region’s other towns as well as breaking into markets outside the region,’ says Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev. ‘As for the prospective construction of four more Auchan hypermarkets in Yekaterinburg, I should say these French entrepreneurs can boast enormous floating capital and can therefore afford to work with minimum profit. We are fully aware of

United Company RUSAL’s Social Welfare Project Center conducts a workshop on expertise, monitoring, and evaluation of social projects in Kamensk-Uralskiy, Sverdlovsk Region, on May 5-7, 2008. The workshop is to be attended by teachers, municipal and civil officers, and heads of local NGOs. The company’s Social Projects School is targeted at stimulating a certain project-developing culture in the local community and training social management experts. Sverdlovsk Region dwellers are going to take part in the workshop for the first time this year.

‘The share of innovational products in Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial output that comes to about 11% at the moment has to reach 25% to 35% by 2020. Only 16% of local industrial enterprises actually deal in technological innovations, while the country’s long-term development scenario calls for at least 40% to 50%,’ Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov announced at a recent government meeting devoted to the region’s developmental strategy. Viktor Koksharov feels this industrial growth rate can be achieved through large-scale modernization of existing production facilities and

According to Interfax CEA’s rating, URSA Bank was one of Russia’s Top 10 banks in terms of private individuals’ investments in the first quarter of 2008. The bank managed to attract 37.782 billion RUR from natural persons. As for the private individuals’ deposits’ growth rate, URSA Bank was rated the country’s second best bank among the top ten organizations, as its deposit portfolio grew by 6.35% over the first three months of 2008, while the top 100 Russian banks only achieved the 2.7% growth rate and twenty out of Russia’s fifty largest banks did worse in this respect compared to the

SKB-Bank’s balance sheet total amounted to 35.8 billion RUR on January 1, 2008 and, thanks to the company’s great activity in the first quarter of the year, the figure reached more than 40 billion RUR by April 2008. SKB-Bank is now Ural Federal District’s leading bank in terms of private individuals’ deposits and Sverdlovsk Region’s largest bank in terms of consumer loans offered to its customers. In addition, SKB-Bank is the region’s No. 1 in terms of own funds, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘SKB-Bank’s stock comes to more than 5 billion RUR at the moment, which makes it possible for us

RusRating confirmed forty-four Russian banks’ credit ratings using the data available as of May 4, 2008. Yekaterinburg-based SKB-Bank’s credit rating was confirmed at BB-, which is better than the rating of many large Moscow-based banks. SKB-Bank’s rating was originally confirmed by the agency at B+ in August 2006 and was promoted to BB- in July 2007. The agency’s analysts say SKB Bank’s rating is based on the fact that SKB-Bank is a medium-sized provincial bank (one of the largest in Sverdlovsk Region, though) that has been cooperating intensely with the region’s authorities for a long time.

‘The region’s labor productivity is expected to quadruple by 2020,’ Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov announced at a recent government meeting devoted to the region’s developmental strategy. Viktor Koksharov believes the implementation of Sverdlovsk Region’s socioeconomic development projects will result in the average annual wage growth of 108.5%, the average annual industrial output growth of at least 107%, and the average annual GDP growth of at least 108% by 2020. ‘These are quite serious and challenging goals; to achieve all this, the investment in the region’s

Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation (Yekaterinburg, Russia), Electrotyazhmash (Kharkov, Ukraine), and ELTA (Kharkov, Ukraine) signed a tripartite strategic cooperation agreement. The three enterprises are going to cooperate in the field of development, production, and market promotion of excavating and drilling machinery, the spokesperson for Uralmash said to UrBC. The spokesperson for Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation reports the three parties are planning to sign contracts that would allow each of the companies to build up their technological and engineering potentials, raise

The price of one liter of gasoline is now nearly the same in Russia and the U.S. and comes to about one dollar. According to the state statisticians, the average gas and diesel fuel prices experienced a certain growth over the several weeks of April. The automobile gasoline now costs 20.32 RUR per liter (AI 76 is sold for 18.02 RUR per liter, AI 92 is sold for 21.36 RUR per liter, AI 95 is sold for 22.84 RUR per liter), while diesel fuel costs 20.89 RUR per liter. Fuel prices went up in fifty Russian constituencies. Nazran experienced the most dramatic price increase: gasoline grew 21.4% more

Nineteen workers of Lobvinskiy biochemical plant have been hunger-striking for seven days now. Twenty people began the hunger strike on April 28, 2008 demanding that they should be paid their wages for the years 2007 and 2008 and get compensated for the delay in accordance with Article 236 of the Labor Code. At the moment, the enterprise owes its employees some 19 million RUR worth of wages.

Six Ural banks were featured in Interfax-100 rating compiled by Interfax-CEA (Center for Economic Analysis). Three of them are located in Tyumen Region, while the other three banks are based in Sverdlovsk Region. SKB-Bank was declared Russia’s 76th largest bank, with its asset volume coming to over 30.8 billion RUR on March 31, 2008. The bank has definitely made great progress in the rating, as it was only given the 86th position a year earlier.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel chaired a monthly meeting on the region’s social development program; one of the points on the agenda had to do with the prospective construction of the Ural Chess Academy in Yekaterinburg. The Governor said that due to lack of financing a new site had to be found. ‘The money we do end up getting is not enough. These 13 million RUR will cover the engineering infrastructure only,’ he noted. The Academy was initially supposed to have been built next to the concert hall downtown, but the new location must be found within the next week.

According to the decree the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel signed on May 4, 2008, the region’s former Deputy Minister for Industry and Science Anatoly Gredin was appointed First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government and the region’s Minister for Industry and Science.

IES-Holding came up with the preliminary results of the audit it did of TGK-9 investment projects. The auditing procedures were carried out in March and April 2008 after the Holding became the company’s majority shareholder. The company’s investment plan appears to have a number of significant flaws. The Holding’s experts believe these plans are based on somewhat obsolete growth and energy spending data that aren’t backed up by the energy consumers’ financial obligations and do not take into account the companies’ reliance on the energy spending dynamics. The experts also see the projects’

‘We have almost finished inspecting Sverdlovsk Region’s warehouse infrastructure. It looks like we have 2.4 million square meters of storage facilities, but only one-third of those can be classed as belonging to A or B categories,’ Sverdlovsk Region Minister of Trade, Food, and Services Vera Solovieva announced at a monthly meeting chaired by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. ‘Twenty-five buildings are currently under construction; the building jobs are in full swing at seven sites, a dozen premises are being prepared for the process, and seven land allotments still have to be

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service took legal action against the Mayor and the Municipal Duma of Nizhniy Tagil, claiming that they violated the federal legislation regarding the protection of competition, the spokesperson for the Service reports. According to the spokesperson, the Mayor is believed to have violated the money transfer procedures (as stated in Article 20 (part 1) of the federal bill) involving two local management companies. Besides, the Service reports the municipal Duma is allegedly guilty of the same offense. The case is to be considered by the

URSA Bank keeps implementing its strategy of regional expansion and has recently introduced its 16th office in Chelyabinsk Region, the bank’s press officer reports. URSA Bank’s new office, located in Karl Marx St, started operating on April 24, 2008 and now offers its customers some of the most popular and advantageous products for private individuals. The range of services includes opening and management of current accounts and savings deposits and consumer and mortgage lending; besides, customers can get their VISA cards issued and dealt with in the office.

Mayak Corporation’s management still cannot get its apartment buildings in Bazoviy Lane commissioned, the company’s President Marina Konkova announced in the course of a monthly meeting chaired by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. Yekaterinburg’s municipal council provided the developer with the land allotment in Bazoviy Lane in order for the latter to put up apartments for a few hundred families, including about a hundred militiamen. Mayak Corporation then promised to offer 13,000 square meters worth of apartments to the officers, yet, according to Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Tyumenenergobank to natural persons for 31 to 90 days went down by 80% (from 5 million RUR to 1 million RUR) in January-March 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of nongovernmental financial organizations’ deposits in Uralfinprombank valid for up to 30 days plummeted by 100% (from 21.5 million RUR to zero) in January-March 2008.