The National Association of Non-State Pension Funds awarded Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov with a special decoration; MMK employees were given an honorary certificate as a sign of public recognition of their achievements. The ceremony took place in Moscow in the course of a solemn gathering devoted to the fifteenth anniversary of non-state pension funds in Russia. The event was attended by the State Duma Deputies, members of the Soviet of the Federation, and representatives of different ministries. Magnitogorsk-based non-state pension fund called Social

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation held a series of deposit auctions, including those based on the Reuters Dealing system, MICEX e-trading system and buying bids; the money was deposited on October 19, 2007, the refund of the deposit and the payment of the interest are due November 16, 2007 (for deposits valid for four weeks) or January 18, 2008 (for deposits valid for three months). The auction was held in compliance with the Federal Law 86 on the Central Bank of Russian Federation as well as with the Bank of Russia’s provisions.

Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg became a site for two-day anti-fissile and radioactive material trafficking maneuvers known as the Border-2007. The maneuvers were conducted within the framework of Russian-American Second Line of Defense Program. Some authorities and heads of Russia’s Federal Tax Service, Ural Customs Administration, and Koltsovo airport customs as well as representatives of local divisions of Rospotrebnadzor and Rostechnadzor (the state consumer rights and environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdogs), experts from the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal

Sberbank’s Ural branch Help and Information Center received about 100,000 calls and letters in January-September 2007. Customers wanted to learn about different products and services, they voiced their wishes and requests and made inquiries about the working hours of the bank’s offices. People from the Republic of Bashkortostan, who made more than 39,000 calls, were the most active group of customers, followed by dwellers of Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region, who made nearly 35,000 queries, the bank’s press officer reports. The bank’s online counseling services are also very popular: more

Ural Treasures Bank assessed the results of its performance in nine months of 2007. Their balance sheet total rose by 2.4 billion RUR, or by 30%, and reached 10,693 million RUR on October 1, 2007. The number of legal entities’ current and cash clearing accounts went up by 12%. The amount of money deposited by businesses reached 1,367.6 million RUR on October 1, 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to natural persons for 181 days to 1 year went down by 50.58% (from 6.331 million RUR to 3.129 million RUR) in January-September 2007.

Bulgaria has demanded recently that Cyrillic alphabet should be used to inscribe the name of the Euro on the coins. At the moment, the coin heads have a unique design in each of the EU member states, while the tails are the same everywhere. The Bulgarians insist that their coins should have the word евро rather than Euro on them, SKB-Bank’s press officer reports. «Each member state embodies its national and cultural uniqueness in the coins; Italian one-Euro coins, for instance, bear a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Harmonious Man, Austrian ones have a portrait of Mozart on them. As for the

Sberbank’s Ural branch had 118.9 billion RUR in its individual customers’ deposit accounts on October 1, 2007, while the number of these accounts came to more than 22 million. In the meantime, the volume of deposits only amounted to 96.8 billion RUR at the beginning of the year, which means the figures went up by over 22 billion RUR over just nine months, the bank’s press officer reports. People living in Yekaterinburg deposited a total of 21 billion RUR with Sberbank, and Sverdlovsk Region dwellers altogether placed 45.4 billion RUR there. The Ural branch’s Deposit Management Director Marina

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin allocated 800 million RUR to all of the region’s municipalities so that they could invest in municipal engineering. In addition, Chelyabinsk was given 100 million RUR for municipal improvements. The spokesperson for the Governor reports this money will be spent on dump trucks, trucks meant for tree-cutting, street-cleaning tractors, water carriers, lift trucks, front loaders, paving compactors, snow-removers, excavators, and dumpers. Everything is expected to be acquired before the end of this year.

«We are currently carrying out an additional investigation of a negative publicity campaign targeted against BALTMAN chain stores. The inquiry will probably have been completed by the end of next week», says Yekaterinburg’s Deputy Prosecutor Alexander Yurovskikh. He reports that further inquiry was needed because the experts involved differed greatly in their conclusions. The incident itself occurred on September 7, 2007 when billboards calling for boycotting BALTMAN chain stores appeared in the streets of Yekaterinburg.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development raised the interest rates on its Premium deposit scheme. This type of deposit provides for an increased interest rate in the last two months of the deposit period. Now the annual interest rate comes to 14% in the fifth and sixth month of the deposit period in Yekaterinburg and a number of other cities, the bank’s press officer reports. The minimum amount of money one can deposit comes to 5,000 RUR, $200, or (200. The interest is calculated on a monthly basis, and the customer is free to either withdraw this money or keep it with the bulk of the

Sverdlovsk Region’s Public Prosecutor Yuri Ponomarev held a meeting aimed at assessing the authority’s performance in January-September 2007 on October 17, 2007. It was reported at the meeting that the number of crimes committed in Sverdlovsk Region went down by 7.6% compared to a year earlier, while the number of grave offenses and felonies went down by 18.5% and 9.4%, respectively. At the same time, the share of detected crimes rose from 38% to 41.5%. Still, the Prosecutor said that Ural Region was nevertheless Russia’s second most crime-prone area, Moscow being No.1. Therefore it could be

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Ural Interregional Bank to natural persons for over 3 years went down by 12.49% (from 14.693 million RUR to 12.857 million RUR) in January-September 2007.

«The Unified State Automated Information System is going to be updated on November 1, 2007. The problem is that the system is quite complicated, so a company, however experienced employees it may have, will not be able to master it in only two months it has been given», Sverdlovsk Region Minister of Trade, Provision, and Services Vera Solovieva says. «The new system is bound to cause industrial stoppages, and this, in its turn, may lead to the shortage of strong drinks on the market and therefore to an increase in prices. Most Ural stores aren’t prepared to work under the new conditions. The

Ural Airlines’ passenger turnover came to 2,426,523,000 passenger-kilometers in three quarters of 2007, which is 15% better than a year earlier, the carrier’s press officer reports. «An airline’s passenger turnover indicates the number of passengers flown times the distance covered by each of the passengers», the company explains. Ural Airlines flew 980,000 passengers in January-September 2007 and operated more than 2,200 international flights, 650 flights to and from the CIS, and 5,600 domestic flights. The airline’s passenger turnover growth figures are 5% better than the Russian average.

Head of Fuel and Energy Administration Andrei Scherbinin reported it to the city council that all of Yekaterinburg’s dwellings (8,500 buildings) began to be heated by October 4, 2007. However, there were some problems with buildings belonging to Sverdlovsk Region Railways and to the military. Then, it turned out to be somewhat difficult to service the mains that were more or less abandoned by their official proprietors, since the federal law adopted this year prohibits spending any municipal money on fixing them.

On October 17, 2007, winners of Ultimaratio, the annual reports contest, received their awards. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development won in the Best Annual Report category. The main idea behind this contest was to promote the principles of business transparency and informational openness, which is seen as one of the indicators of a company’s great corporate culture and social awareness. This year, Ural Treasures Bank, SKB-Bank, the Urals and Volga Interregional Company (MRSK), Concern Kalina, Yekaterinburg Electrical Networks Company, Sverdlovenergo, SverdlovEnergoSbyt, East

SKB-Bank has recently raised the maximum amount of money one could borrow from a bank using the Loan without Warrantors scheme to 200,000 RUR. Besides, the maximum period of a loan has been prolonged to three years. SKB-Bank’s loan portfolio (in terms of loans given to natural persons) exceeded 9.7 billion RUR on October 1, 2007, which made it possible for the company to outstrip its rivals and become Sverdlovsk Region’s largest bank and Ural Federal District’s third largest bank in terms of their loan portfolio.

Sverdlovsk Region Government got down to trying to stabilize the essential food prices. In order to do this, it’s about to sign a special agreement with the food producers and trading businesses regarding the maximum permissible trade markup. The agreement will be signed after the government looks into how justified the price growth actually was in August and September 2007. The research to this extent is now being conducted by an ad hoc team of experts comprising representatives of the Regional Power Engineering Committee and the region’s Ministry of Agriculture.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to sole traders for 1 to 3 years went down by 46.56% (from 13.1 million RUR to 7 million RUR) in January-September 2007.