URSA Bank’s car loan portfolio exceeded 3 billion RUR in March 2007. The bank is currently offering its customers a total of seven borrowing schemes, with Hand-Over scheme apparently becoming the ultimate winner in terms of popularity. This offer makes it possible to acquire a car directly from a private individual and thus avoid all the extra commission payments. Another scheme known as Auction is meant specifically for customers willing to purchase a quality car directly from an auction held in Japan or any other country. In addition, clients are encouraged to use the bank’s special offers

National Health Project in Sverdlovsk Region is going to get 10% more investments in 2007, reports the regional Ministry for Health. ‘These additional subsidies will come from both regional and federal budgets. The investments haven’t been distributed yet, but we already know that more money is to be given for all the expense items,’ says the spokesperson for the Ministry.

Balance of natural person deposits of Ural Bank of Sberbank of Russia came to over 100 billion RUR in February 2007; the number of deposits reached 22 million. ‘Our bank offers its clients 19 deposit types that cater for different customers’ needs,’ says Natural Person Deposit Director Marina Papakova. ‘Old-age pensioners, for instance, can use our deposit schemes that provide for a higher than average interest rate with only moderate amount of money needed to put in an account. Entrepreneurs are offered our Special deposit that combines the interest rate offered on a deposit account and the

Sverdlovsk Region Court of Arbitration stated that HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (general contractor of Noviy Grad, the developer) should go through bankruptcy proceedings with Olga Rushitskaya as the trustee in bankruptcy. Ms Rushitskaya now has to hold a meeting of the company’s creditors and decide upon a self-regulating organization whose members would then appoint the trustee in bankruptcy themselves. ‘My predictions have come true: I knew there was no other way for HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. but to go through bankruptcy proceedings, as it appears impossible to restore the company’s solvency,’ Ms

The press officers of Ural Airlines dealt with their clients’ most frequently asked questions on March 15, 2007. A lot of questions had to with the possibility of renovating Koltsovo airport without inconveniencing the passengers. ‘Back in the 80s, the airport used to service twice as many passengers even though it had neither the second international terminal nor the check-in zones 5 and 6. It somehow managed to operate efficiently. The airport could invest time, efforts, and money in improving passenger service rather than in making life difficult for a more successful rival,’ the press

Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Building, Housing Maintenance, and Utilities underwent restructuring, reports the ministry’s press officer Elena Tolmacheva. ‘Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s decree 138 provided for the setting up of an executive body named Sverdlovsk Region State Construction Surveillance Administration; the regional government now has to approve of the new authority, determine the number of staff, and make proposals in respect of the would-be Head of Administration,’ the press officer says. ‘The new authority is going to control all the buildings currently under construction;

Mikhail Shreer, Criminal Offenses Director of Yekaterinburg Department of Internal Affairs, announced at a press conference that 945 cars were stolen and 1,178 cars were hijacked in Yekaterinburg last year. ‘We managed to solve 96 cases related to car theft or hijacking in 2006 and 89 cases out of 1,011 in 2005,’ Mr. Shreer said. ‘Automobiles are usually stolen from ‘half-legal’ parking areas and from parking lots provided by trade centers. The most commonly stolen cars are VAZ-made ones and Toyota Land Cruiser and Toyota RAV4,’ he observed.

Alexander Jakob, First Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg, has recently conducted a meeting devoted to town planning prospects in 2007. The main point on the agenda concerned the prospective network of trunk roads. There are thrice as many cars in the city today as in 1900; the total length of the urban roads comes to 880.1 kilometers, which is obviously not enough. The improvement committee is planning to construct another 44.2 kilometers of roads in the near future, including nine interchanges; in addition, a number of streets is to be restored. Pulvimixer is still to be used as the primary

‘Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg is trying to impugn our order regarding the airport’s refusal to provide Ural Airlines with the slots for winter flights from Yekaterinburg to Moscow and back,’ says the spokesperson for Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region. The Service earlier stated that Kotsovo airport had been violating the antimonopoly law when refusing the carrier the so-called historic slots in winter. The airport said back then that due to overhaul of check-in zones 1 and 2 and leasing of zones 5 and 6 meant for domestic flights they couldn’t service too many passengers

‘Our regional division received a large number of complaints regarding bank loans; a great part of these complaints concerned Russian Standard Bank,’ Elena Bogacheva of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) in Sverdlovsk Region announced at a recent press conference. ‘This company is now involved in an administrative suit; we’ve asked the bank for a number of documents in order to analyze the data and support or refute the claim as to their violating consumer rights,’ Ms Bogacheva said. ‘One can name the most common complaints that the borrowers come up with: unscrupulous ways

Regional division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) received 5,337 complaints in writing and 23,000 complaints altogether in 2006. All of last year’s claims amounted to approximately 84 million RUR, Vladimir Gurvich (M.D. and Deputy Chief State Sanitary Inspector in Sverdlovsk Region) announced at a press conference. ‘Our inspections resulted in withdrawing 25 million RUR worth of goods last year; besides, they revealed 14 million RUR worth of low-quality services,’ he said. ‘Our regional division provided 7,000 pieces of professional advice and conducted over 7,000

‘The local mortgage lending market is likely to undergo even more changes in the nearest future. For one, the increase in demand for loans taken to buy places in the suburbs of the city will soon slow down or stop altogether. The potential borrowers’ income makes it impossible for them to acquire a dwelling even on a mortgage; besides, the demand has been affected by some realtors setting unfairly high prices. An apartment, for example, may be offered for 3.2 million RUR whereas it really costs 2.7 million,’ Nikolai Gunchenko of Gunchenko & Co. Real Estate Ltd. said to UrBC. Sverdlovsk

Severnaya Kazna, one of the local banks, explained the idea behind the recent redistribution of shares among the company’s shareholders via the corporate website. (Members of the Board of Directors Pavel Chernavin and Rais Garifulin, the bank’s second largest and fourth largest shareholders respectively, have recently sold their 19% and 5% share holdings). The company’s online forum placed a notice on the changes in the shareholder structure signed by Chairman Andrei Volchik. Mr. Volchik observes that these changes have to do with the differing interests of the bank’s major shareholders, that

‘I believe one should be very careful with the idea of setting up a few more Auchan supermarkets in Sverdlovsk Region; the same applies to any large supermarkets in general. The thing is, it is quite dangerous trying to catch up with the West on the number of square meters of trade areas per 1,000 citizens without taking into account any other factors,’ Alexei Podolyako of Alliance Non-Commercial Partnership said to UrBC. The management of Auchan was reported to mention their intention of setting up four or five new supermarkets in the region in the course of a meeting with Governor Eduard

The licensing department of Russian Federation Federal Tourism Agency is going to set up the Federal Register of all travel agents. ‘We have received no applications so far, but I suppose all the agents will be able to apply in time,’ says Vladimir Strzhalkovskiy, Agency CEO. The new legislation states registering is now obligatory for all travel agents; according to this law, the travel agents must bear certain financial responsibility for their services; it also clarifies the ways and methods of state control over them as well as provides some new legal terms and explains how the services

A conference devoted to joint mortgage project of Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank and Aston Group was held in Yekaterinburg on March 14, 2007. The mortgage scheme is going to be available beginning from March 2007. The event was attended by the bank’s Chairman Alexander Ivanov, the U.S. Consul General in Yekaterinburg John Stepanchuk, Aston Group Chairman Vyacheslav Trapesnikov, and some reporters. The agenda of the conference covered some general issues as well as those devoted to problems connected with mortgage loans, mortgages for new buildings, and the cooperation prospects of Sverdlovsk

According to the annual report of the Interstate Aviation Committee for 2006, there were 33 air crashes in the countries joining the intergovernmental Agreement on Civil Aviation and Air Space Use last year. Ural Airlines had no accidents in 2006, reports their press officer. The data given in this report can be further proved by JACDEC (the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre) research findings: they say Ural Airlines is one of Russia’s safest carriers. JACDEC has been investigating air crashes and publishing annual reports on the global carriers’ safety level since 1973. Normally,

Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region is going to consider the suit of Noviy Grad (the local developer) regarding violation of advertising law on March 29, 2007. The developer placed an ad with BLIZKO.RU magazine on December 6, 2006 promising to offer winter holiday discounts on the price of a flat between December 4 and December 29, 2006. Each customer was promised a discount, a present, and an all-prize lottery participation with prizes distributed at the company’s office. The prizes would be drawn using the first installment receipts. Federal Antimonopoly Service sent an

‘Pavel Chernavin and Rais Garifulin’s selling their share holdings and Severnaya Kazna Leasing Company Ltd. becoming the bank’s shareholder means Severnaya Kazna is preparing for an auction. This is likely to happen even earlier than I had expected, that is, before the end of 2007,’ claims Vitaliy Kalugin, Assets Manager of Unicom Partner Investment Company. ‘If these shares are eventually acquired by Chairman Vladimir Frolov from Severnaya Kazna Leasing Company Ltd., the bank may be sold shortly after the semiannual account,’ Mr. Kalugin says. ‘Should the leasing company wish to keep the

According to the bank’s official report, Severnaya Kazna has recently redistributed its shares among the company’s shareholders. Chairman of the Supervisory Board Andrei Volchik increased his share in the bank’s authorized capital from 4.021% to 10.024%, or by 5.003%. Member of the Board of Directors Rais Garifulin sold his 5.002% share and ceased to be the bank’s shareholder. Severnaya Kazna Leasing Company Ltd. became the new stockholder through acquiring a 19.028% holding from Member of the Board of Directors Pavel Chernavin, whose share in the bank’s authorized capital now comes to 0%.