BBDO Branding, URSA Bank’s re-branding partner, won in the ADCR Awards 2007 in the Graphic Design/Corporate Style & Re-Branding category. The assessing panel was to evaluate the bank’s logo, corporate style, printed materials and advertising leaflets. ‘It’s been a pleasure working with a client who you feel aspires to be a leader in both banking and design sector. On the one hand, the task was quite easy: two banks merging to become URSA Bank (a name suggested by Thomas Gad); the company’s new name implies certain allusions to the famous constellation (Ursa Major, or the Great Bear). On

Russian safety monitoring agencies found salmonella in a 25-ton shipment consisting of chicken backs from the U.S. and in 25 tons of Argentinean boneless beef. Rosselkhoznadzor (the state agricultural watchdog) said this was the reason why it decided to impose temporary bans on meat import from the U.S.-based Р-1257 and Argentinean FRIAR S/A 1970 beginning from May 15, 2007. The agency has already asked the American and Argentinean veterinary authorities to investigate the incident to make sure nothing of the kind happens again. In addition, a 19-ton shipment and a 5-ton shipment of ground

TGK-9, the local heat and power supplier, has been gradually lowering the temperature level in Yekaterinburg’s heat networks since May 10, 2007. The process will have been completed by May 20, 2007. 'These will be the non-residential premises like production facilities that will be cut out first, then it will be the city’s living quarters‘ turn, and finally, the heating season will be over in socially important buildings like schools, hospitals, and kindergartens. Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy has already signed a provision regarding the end of the heating season and issued

Khortytsa’s (aka Hortiza) share of Ukrainian strong drinks market grew 10% over a year to make the company the country’s record-setting No.1, Khortytsa’s spokesman reports. MEMRB IRI (www.memrb.com), the major international research company, looked at the company’s success in the first months of 2007 and stated the consumers kept changing their preferences in favor of Khortytsa, whose market share has been rising all the time over the last 18 months. Khortytsa’s sales amounted to 28% of all the sales on the strong drinks market in March 2007, which made the distillery Ukraine’s top strong

A new federal cardiovascular surgery center will be started in Chelyabinsk in 2007; Head of Russian Federation Government Mikhail Fradkov has already signed a decree to this extent, acting Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Andrei Kosilov reports. Mr. Kosilov also says the new clinic is going to become Ural Federal District’s second high-tech medical center (there is one operating in Tyumen at the moment), with the number of such surgery hubs around the country expected to reach 15 units altogether. Chelyabinsk was chosen because of the outstanding preparation and lobbying by the region’s

Aviaprad’s Yak 40 flying from Moscow to Yekaterinburg had to opt for a crash landing at Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg, says the airport’s press officer. The plane was reported to be experiencing problems with the air conditioning system. The aircraft landed in Yekaterinburg at 2.25 PM, with firefighters and ambulance crew awaiting the passengers on the ground, but no damage had been done to the plane or the people on board.

Officers of Chelyabinsk customs withdrew about 230,000 RUR worth of undeclared goods at Bugristoye automobile customs check, Ural Customs Administration reports. A Kazakh citizen was trying to leave Russia with 11.3 tons of cut-up marble plates whose cost was estimated at 39,000 RUR. In addition, three trucks going to Russia from Kazakhstan were transporting 34.6 tons of potatoes worth 190,000 RUR altogether. The owner of the shipment never declared this produce, which is against the current legislation, so the cargo had to be withdrawn and stored at the customs warehouse; the customs

RENOVA Stroy Group is going to present its Academic Construction Project at Global City 2007, an international forum to be held in Lyon on May 14-16, 2007, the company's press officer reports. Global City is an international forum for business executives and members of city councils devoted to strategies, new methods and specific projects in the field of municipal improvement. The forum is a globally recognized place to present one’s large town planning projects and share one’s experience in dealing with construction challenges related to urban development. The agenda of the forum

Four-room apartments in Yekaterinburg experienced the greatest price growth in January-April 2007, says Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The price of one square meter of dwelling has gone up 10.96% since the beginning of the year and now comes to 66,119 RUR, whereas prices for three-, two-, and one-room apartments have only increased by 6.92%, 4.56%, and 3.45%, respectively, so prices now come to 65,332 RUR, 66,087 RUR, and 73,669 RUR per square meter of dwelling. Even though these are one-room apartments where prices are the highest, their price growth has been very slow; this was not the case

URSA Bank assessed its performance in April 2007. Its balance sheet total reached 151.9 billion RUR on May 1, 2007, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 3.7 times. The bank’s net wealth went up 3 times and reached 103.9 billion RUR. The bank’s resource base made up of investments by international financial bodies grew 5.1 times, coming to 41.9 billion RUR; this money is traditionally used to develop the company’s own lending schemes as well as programs supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The overall volume of URSA Bank’s lending operations tripled,

Rostourism has recently published lists of travel agents who managed or failed to fill in their applications for United Federal Register correctly. There are 55 companies in the first category and 4 companies in the second one. Quite remarkably, there have been no Sverdlovsk Region-based operators among the applicants so far.

SKB-Bank was rated 16th among Russian factor companies in terms of transferred money last year. The rating was compiled by the Expert magazine; they believe the local factoring market doubled in 2006, reaching $11 billion, which is more impressive than in the case of its East European counterparts; moreover, provided the current growth rate remains the same, the market is expected to become comparable with the ones based in Western Europe. This success has so far remained unique to this country’s financial services markets. The Expert magazine says SKB-Bank’s factoring activity exceeded 1.131

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed the 2008-2010 Federal Property Privatization Plan on April 29, 2007. The plan covers a number of enterprises based in Sverdlovsk Region, namely, Beloyarskoye fuel complex (8,623 shares, or 100% of its authorized capital, are to be sold by auction); Kamensk-Uralskiy fuel complex (67,700 shares, or 100% of its authorized capital, are to be sold by auction), Kamyshlov timber and fuel enterprise (172,200 shares, or 100% of its authorized capital, are to be sold by auction), IT and electronics company based in Nizhniy Tagil (22,460 shares, or 100% of

Sverdlovsk Region’s law-enforcement officers keep monitoring the local companies’ compliance with the wage-paying regulations; they have already revealed 1,212 wage arrears offenses since the beginning of 2007. This resulted in 298 claims regarding the payment of salaries that were supposed to have been paid to workers but never were that were placed with courts. The total damage is estimated at 1.8 million RUR. 247 administrative suits have been filed so far, with offenders having to pay more than 40,000 RUR worth of fines. 102 people will be prosecuted, 167 executives have received

Yekaterinburg-based dwellings, production sites, and social welfare buildings are to get heating cut-outs on May 10, 2007; hospitals, kindergartens and other socially important buildings will be the last to be cut out. Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy has already signed a provision regarding the end of the heating season and issued some proposals related to the heating season 2007/2008. The city’s Fuel and Energy Administration has drawn up a schedule for hydraulic tests to be given to all the heat networks in Yekaterinburg. The schedule also provides for seven pressure and

A 20-ton shipment of beef trim imported from Germany and 21 tons of slab bacon from Spain were found to contain salmonella, the press officer of Rosselkhoznadzor (the state agricultural watchdog) reports. This is the reason why Rosselkhoznadzor decided to impose temporary bans on meat import from German D EZ 302 EWG and Spanish ES-10.09362/BA CE and asked the German and Spanish veterinary authorities to investigate the incidents.

'The Bank of Russia determined the exchange rates at 25.73 RUR per one U.S. dollar and 35.03 RUR per euro on May 9, 2007. Within the next two days, the U.S. and European monetary authorities are expected to take their decisions regarding changes in the current rates; in the meantime, the issue is open up to speculation,’ SKB-Bank’s employee Sergey Vetyshev says. 'Most analysts believe the U.S. Federal Reserve System meeting on the open markets will result in the rate remaining the same; yet the unemployment statistics published the other day (the unemployment rate has gone up this

Federal State Agency “Land Cadastral Chamber” looked into the results of inspections aimed at checking compliance with the land law in 2006. The agency’s officers conducted 164,797 inspections last year, most of which took place in Moscow Region (13,376), Bashkortostan (10,296), Kemerov Region (6,855), Nizhniy Novgorod Region (5,717), Tatarstan (5,156), Sverdlovsk Region (5,089), Krasnodar Region (4,915), and Samara Region (4,575). The inspections held in these regions amount to 34% of all inspections conducted in Russia. The following places turned out to have the highest number of offenses:

Bank24.ru has successfully paid off its first promissory note project tranche; the bank was able to attract investments from some Moscow-based banks as well as from banks located in Russia’s largest cities, namely, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, Kazan, and Ufa. The loan was coordinated by BrokerCreditService Consulting, the bank’s press officer reports. 'The successful completion of the first tranche proves that our promissory notes enjoy nice demand and can be an effective investment tool throughout the entire country. We intend to keep earning a favorable reputation on the financial market

Bank, the statistics newsletter of the Bank of Russia in Sverdlovsk Region, published its report on the local foreign currency market in 2006. On the whole, the number of operations on the market exceeded that for 2005 by 1.8%. The number of banks’ transactions involving foreign cash went down 1.7% in the last quarter of the year compared to the previous quarter. Natural persons withdrew 17.6% more money from their foreign currency accounts in October-December 2006 compared to the previous quarter and 1.7% more money in 2006 compared to a year earlier. At the same time, they invested 5.1%