The Board of Directors of Chelyabinsk Tube-Rolling Plant suggested on March 18, 2007 that the general shareholder meeting should result in the decision to pass a dividend for 2006, says the company’s official report produced on March 21, 2007 in compliance with the obligatory reporting of information that could influence a company’s stock price or affect its investment activity.

‘The Egyptian authorities have been trying to ban the use of IL 86 planes for transferring Russian tourists to Egypt for a few years already, but we are hoping this ban will never be imposed, for it is advantageous for neither them nor us,’ Director of Inna Tour Travel Agency Inna Averyanova said to UrBC. ‘IL 86 is very economical compared to, for instance, TU 154, which is why, should these planes be forbidden to fly to Egypt, prices will soar and the number of travelers will drop. In the meantime, Egypt is a country whose economy largely depends on tourism, and the possible ban would mean

‘We haven’t been selling more strong drinks produced by Ukraine-based Nemiroff in the last two months,’ goods manager of Napoleon food store Oksana Sinchuk said to UrBC. ‘The sales have remained the same over the last few months; the product has obtained its niche and has a stable number of niche customers,’ she said.

‘The recent arrival of Auchan drove us out of Yekaterinburg’s Top 5 food retailers list; yet we are hoping to climb back this year by dint of outdoing one of the local players,’ Alexander Raisikh, CEO of Zvezdniy supermarket chain, announced at the conference devoted to regional trade. ‘The presence of federal and transnational players on the local market has definitely been affecting the current status quo. We’ve lost 2% to 3% of our profits because of Auchan, for example,’ Mr. Raisikh said. ‘As for Ramstore, is does not appear to influence things greatly. I believe a lot of local food

‘The arrival of foreign builders in the region is bound to develop our construction business in the best possible ways. These companies introduce new ways of working, advanced technologies, and modern standards. At the same time, they ensure effective management and logistics coordination, whereas the builders themselves are usually regional dwellers, which means we get plenty of local skilled workers due to the training they provide. This is why Sverdlovsk Region welcomes all the foreign builders,’ Sverdlovsk Region Governor Eduard Rossel announced at a briefing on March 22, 2007.

Bank24.ru and Colvir Software Solutions Ltd. contracted for the supply and introduction of CBS-2, the core banking system, on March 19, 2007. Bank 24.ru decided it needed a new banking system after its client base doubled and the company decided to break into the federal market. The bank conducted a tender in order to make the best choice there is among both Russian companies (Escape-M, Quorum, R-Style Software Lab, Financial Technologies Center, and Diasoft) and foreign businesses (Forbis Ltd. of Lithuania and Colvir Software Solutions Ltd. of Great Britain) and finally decided on Colvir

‘The city council has been trying to make Yekaterinburg more attractive to investors over the last few years; this has affected all the fields of local business, including the retail grocery market,’ Deputy Mayor Viktor Konteev announced at the conference devoted to regional trade in Russia on March 21, 2007. Mr. Konteev maintains that 65% of all current investments are now transferred to the building industry (housing and commercial estate – in this order); retail market gets a lot of financing as well. The city’s economy, however, largely depends on the paying capacity of the city’s

Sverdlovsk Region’s retail trade turnover came to more than 53 million RUR in January and February 2007, reports the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Economy and Labor. The catering companies’ turnover amounted to 2.5 billion RUR, which exceeds the figures for two months of 2006 by 28.5% in actual prices and by 17.4% in terms of comparable prices. The region’s population bought 14.6 billion RUR of services, which exceeds the figures for two months of 2006 by 16.4% in actual prices and by 5.5% in terms of comparable prices. The agricultural output reached the point of 2.4 billion

The average salary of a worker based in Sverdlovsk Region amounted to 12,009 RUR in January 2007, which is 32.2% better than a year earlier. The official unemployment rate came to 1.41% on March 1, 2007, with 34,059 people registered with the placement service, whereas businesses and organizations placed 30,844 vacancies, says the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Economy and Labor. 4,000 people were born in the region in January 2007, which is 19% more people than a year earlier and 5,900 people died, which is 11.8% less than in January 2006. The monthly allowance for people

‘Bankruptcy proceedings usually presuppose registering all the remaining assets of a company and selling them by auction,’ explains Roman Rechkin, Legal Issues Director of Intellect-C Legal Security Agency relating to HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (general contractor of Noviy Grad, the local developer). ‘People who invested money in their apartment block are now in desperate straits. If the building has not been commissioned yet, they can’t claim any property right over their apartment since the latter just does not exist. It’s also difficult to make the insolvent company give you your money back,

Head of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) Konstantin Pulikovskiy is going to visit Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk Regions on March 26-30, 2007, reports the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor in Sverdlovsk Region. Mr. Pulikovskiy will meet the regional leaders and pay a visit to Mayak Production Association based in Chelyabinsk Region and Beloyarskaya power station based in Sverdlovsk Region. The other points on the agenda have to do with complex inspections of the regions’ largest industrial enterprises. He is also planning to hold a meeting with

The total amount of regional budget expenditures related to public property management might rise from 500 million RUR to 900 million, Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Public Property Management Alexei Molotkov announced at the extraordinary meeting of Sverdlovsk Region Duma. These extra expenditures are largely needed to buy assets important to state projects. One expense item includes buying shares of Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank. The law on regional public property management and privatization in 2007 that has already been approved of by the Duma and will now have to be considered by the House

Local bus fare might rise to 10 RUR after Yekaterinburg’s municipal bus union has placed its budget schemes with the Regional Power Committee; it claims their calculations have already been approved of by the city council. ‘The prime cost of transferring one passenger by bus comes to 15.21 RUR at the moment, so the existing fares are not sufficient to either repair the buses or give our workers a pay rise. Our staff turnover now amounts to 40% as people are simply not willing to work for the money we can afford to pay them. This is why we sent an application to the Regional Power Committee,’

‘The Board of Directors of Russian Railways decided at a meeting in Moscow on March 20, 2007 that Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Shevket Shaidullin should resign,’ the PR Director of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Andrei Ivanov said to UrBC. The reason for Mr. Shaidullin’s resignation and the name of the new head is to be announced at a briefing scheduled for 2 PM on March 22, 2007. In the meantime, Gudok newspaper (the official press organ of Russian Railways) has already reported that Mr. Shaidullin will have to resign owing to systematic failure to ensure safe transit of trains. On March

The meeting of Uralmashzavod’s Board of Directors held on March 20, 2007 resulted in appointing Nazim Efendiev the company’s CEO. Mr. Efendiev is to start working in this capacity on March 21, 2007. He will thus succeed Boris Vasilyev, who has been Uralmashzavod’s CEO since December 26, 2005, reports the company’s press officer. Nazim Efendiev was born in Baku on December 16, 1963. He graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages with a major in military interpreting in 1985 and served in the army in 1985-1992. He got his MBA in the Academy of National Economy and completed a

A meeting of Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region devoted to alleged violation of antimonopoly law by Koltsovo airport took place on March 20, 2007. At the beginning of the year, the airport was found guilty of using monopolist practices and violating the federal law on protection of competition. Once again, the airport’s management appears to be trying to exert pressure on carriers through signing agreements which provide for a 100% advance payment covering all the expenses occasioned by the aircraft maintenance, fuel, and food in the given month, reports the spokesperson for

Chelyabinsk Region and Rosselkhozbank decided to prolong their cooperation agreement by five years; all the papers to this extent were signed by Governor Petr Sumin and the bank’s chairman Yuri Trushin on March 20, 2007. Mr. Trushin says the bank provided the region with two times more money than stated in their previous five-year arrangement; it invested about 3bn RUR in the South Ural agricultural development last year alone, mainly in the form of development loans to both large enterprises and small farms and in the form of mortgages. Rosselkhozbank intends to invest at least 12bn RUR in

RosBusinessConsulting published its rating of most rapidly developing banks in 2006. URSA Bank’s position was determined by the combined ratings of its predecessors (Uralvneshtorgbank and SibAcademBank). According to the information agency, URSA Bank was rated 12th on Russia’s Top100 list in terms of net wealth and capital growth, 13th in terms of giving loans to legal entities, and 11th in terms of amount of legal entities accounts. The bank was even more successful on the retail market: it was rated Russia’s 6th most dynamically developing bank in terms of consumer lending growth last year

‘At the moment, the company sees increasing the number of scheduled flights and cutting back on the number of chartered ones as one of its strategic challenges. Ural carriers are starting to give up practices of letting one travel agent book the whole airplane and are now trying to offer blocks of seats on scheduled flights to a few travel companies at a time. Most of the world’s major airlines prefer to focus on scheduled flights, since they are so much more convenient for passengers,’ Commercial Director of Ural Airlines Kirill Skuratov said to UrBC. ‘One can buy a ticket for a scheduled

Sverdlovsk Region Duma deputies approved of amendments to the regional budget proposed by Governor Eduard Rossel on March 20, 2007, which resulted in raising the revenues by 9.805 billion RUR. The total budget now amounts to 88.111 billion RUR, with the budget expenditures estimated at 92.256 billion, or 13.949 billion more than prior to the amendments. 37% of these extra revenues will be invested in socially important fields, 42% will be transferred to municipal bodies. Additional 2.3 billion RUR, 2.4 billion RUR and 330 million RUR will be spent on healthcare, pay rise to civil servants (a