‘The All-Russian Union of Insurers is going to take part in the meeting of the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency’s committee regarding the dispute between the insurer and the bank. We have already received the report on the independent examination of damage done to UralTransBank prepared by FBK Company Ltd. and the official response of UralTransBank,’ Pavel Bichiakishvili, the Legal Issues Director of the All-Russian Union of Insurers said to UrBC representative. The second meeting of the committee has been scheduled for January 18, 2007. It is expected to be attended by the

Eight people were killed and ten people were injured in the pickling line accident at the sheet-rolling shop of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Magnitogorsk on November 28, 2006, reports the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor (Russia’s state environmental and technological safety watchdog) in Ural Federal District. An ad hoc committee completed the investigation of the hows and whys of the tragedy on December 29, 2006 and found no violations as far as the performance of the pickling line was concerned. Prior to the roof failure, all the equipment had been operating properly, and no computer

As the spokesperson for Predein and Partners, a PR agency, said to UrBC representative regarding last year’s car sales in Russia, Krasnolesie car center sold 620 foreign cars in January-November 2006. 159 cars were sold at under 1m RUR, 364 vehicles were sold for 1m RUR to 2.5m RUR, and 97 automobiles were sold for over 2.5m RUR. This included 80 Jaguars, 222 Land Rovers, and 318 Volvos.

The report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affect the health of Sverdlovsk Region population indicates that Sredneuralsky Copper Smelting Plant (part of Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC)) is the top air polluter in Revdinsky district, Sverdlovsk Region. Its share in the total amount of harmful emissions released in the air comes to 93.2%. Revdinsky district-based enterprises that emit waste gas without recycling it first have already dumped 18,728 tons of pollutants, with 347,999 tons received by the dust- and gas-cleaning installations, of which

According to the report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affect the health of Sverdlovsk Region population, Polymetallic Production, the subsidiary of Uralelectromed (part of Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company), is the top air polluter of Kirovgrad, Sverdlovsk Region. Its share in the total amount of harmful emissions released in the air comes to 95.2%. The company dumps 98.8% of local sulphur dioxide, 51.3% of the area’s nitrogen dioxide, 77.4% of the total amount of carbon monoxide, and 100% of locally emitted lead.

The Russian Federation Federal Antimonopoly Service decided to give the general approval to the merger of RUSAL, SUAL Holding, and Glencore. SUAL Group creditors have officially confirmed their agreement to the changes in the company’s shareholder structure. RUSAL shareholders, for instance, will own 66% of the new company, SUAL Holding shareholders will get a 22% share of the assets, Glencore shareholders are to own 12% of the company’s shares. The merger is going to raise the net debt and change the debtors’ financial ratios for a while, which has also been agreed upon by the creditors.

UralTransBank’s point-of-sale terminal located in Krasnoufimsk office of EnergoSbyt and EnergoNadzor (part of Russian Railways) at 1 Sportivnaya St. closed down on January 10, 2007.

After the new tariff schemes come into effect on February 1, 2007, the landline and mobile communication is going to cost virtually the same, which means that some landline users might want to unsubscribe from UralSvyazInform, the major regional stationary operator. ‘This client reflux is only natural, but the percentage of people that will stop using the service is hard to determine as of yet,’ Deputy GD of UralSvyazInform and Director of Yekaterinburg telecommunications Leontiy Yakovlev announced at a press conference.

‘We haven’t been informed about the possible closing down of Mega Trade Center in Yekaterinburg,’ Nadezhda Kiseleva, the spokesperson for M.Video, the consumer electronics retail chain, said to UrBC representative. ‘We do know that Mega conducted all the examinations of compliance with the fire safety requirements; we are also aware of the fact that not all of the requirements were actually met. Yet Mega is a large international company that has a lot of market experience, so we hope it will be able to work things out in the nearest future,’ Ms Kiseleva said. The State Fire Surveillance

‘Such cost-cutting practices as lean production, kaizen, or ISO management do not work effectively in isolation. This is why no company using the system can implement it in its full format,’ Evgeniy Shchepetov, Deputy Business Process Re-engineering Director of Kamensk Uralskiy Metallurgical Plant, said to UrBC representative. ‘One often hears of companies who have successfully used Toyota’s strategies in Russia. I personally think this isn’t feasible, as this car maker’s experience is unique. If a business wants to cut its production costs, it is better off trying to come up with its own way

‘UralTransBank placed its comments on the independent examination conducted by FBK Company Ltd. at the request of ROSNO, the insurance company, with the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency and the Association of Regional Russian Banks,’ the bank’s Deputy Chairman Andrei Spitsin said to UrBC representative. Many experts believe that this can be seen as the retaliation for the subjective (as UralTransBank thinks) report of the independent examination committee organized by the insurer. After the meeting of the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency executives devoted to the clash between ROSNO

The Russian Federation Federal Antimonopoly Service decided to give the general approval to the merger of RUSAL, SUAL Holding, and Glencore. SUAL Group creditors have officially confirmed their agreement to the changes in the company’s shareholder structure. RUSAL shareholders, for instance, will own 66% of the new company, SUAL Holding shareholders will get a 22% share of the assets, Glencore shareholders are to own 12% of the company’s shares. The merger is going to raise the net debt and change the debtors’ financial ratios for a while, which has also been agreed upon by the creditors.

A court examination of two insurers using similar names is going to take place in Yekaterinburg on January 24, 2007. Belaya Bashnya Insurance Broker Ltd. sued Belaya Bashnya Zdorovie Insurance Company demanding that the defendant change their name and pay a 5m RUR fine. The general director of Belaya Bashnya Zdorovie Boris Vologzheninov tends to see the actions of the plaintiff as an attempt of redistributing the regional obligatory medical insurance market.

SUAL Holding representatives visited a boarding school and an orphanage in Krasnoturinsk on January 16, 2007 within the framework of their charity campaign devoted to the company’s tenth anniversary. The campaign actually started last year when the company set up two new playgrounds in the town. A company car delivered a TV set, a DVD player, some tape recorders, computers and electronic appliances as well as some board games and sweets to the school and hygienic items, toys and New Year gifts to the orphanage. The campaign also covered giving presents to schoolchildren and orphans in

SibAcademBank and Uralvneshtorgbank merged to become URSA Bank in 2006 in order to create a bank with an increased geographical spread and client database. The new bank is going to develop further by keeping up with the traditions and trends of its predecessors such as informational transparency, exceptional client-friendliness, and use of advanced technologies. The bank’s balance sheet total reached the point of 138.1bn RUR on January 1, 2007, which is 4.3 times better than that of SibAcademBank a year earlier. Its net wealth (assessed with the help of Interfax method) increased by 3.7 times

‘Such cost-cutting practices as lean production, kaizen, or ISO management do not work effectively in isolation. This is why no company using the system can implement it in its full format,’ Evgeniy Shchepetov, Deputy Business Process Re-engineering Director of Kamensk Uralskiy Metallurgical Plant, said to UrBC representative. ‘One often hears of companies who have successfully used Toyota’s strategies in Russia. I personally think this isn’t feasible, as this car maker’s experience is unique. If a business wants to cut its production costs, it is better off trying to come up with its own way

According to the spokesperson of the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency, one more meeting devoted to the independent examination of damage done to UralTransBank conducted by FBK Company Ltd. (an auditing and consulting firm) at the request of ROSNO, the insurance company, will be held tomorrow. The meeting is expected to be attended by the representatives of the Association of Regional Russian Banks, Russian Union of Car Insurers, ROSNO, UralTransBank, and some executives of the Federal Insurance Surveillance Agency. The dispute originally started with both parties accusing each other of

Evraz Holding Ltd., the sponsor and organizer of a charitable program known as City of Friends – City of Children, provided Meridian (a student technical development club) with a 250,000 RUR grant to buy all the equipment needed to set up a children’s TV program. The television facilities include a video camera, microphones, and a nonlinear editing device, all ordered and delivered from Moscow. Meridian-based children’s information agency is planning to start working on the pilot program in the nearest future. The program is expected to appear on Channel 10 in Novokuznetsk. Every monthly

Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy signed a strategic project referred to as Clean Air. The project aims to reduce vehicular pollution as well as cut down on emissions coming from stationary points. The number of vehicles used in Yekaterinburg has doubled over the last 10 years (from 167,000 cars in 1995 to 441,000 in 2005), and experts predict that these figures will rise by another 35% to 50% by 2015. To make matters worse, many Yekaterinburg-based enterprises use obsolete technologies and worn-out equipment, which is why emissions are often released in the air when they are

The official website of the Embassy of Sweden in Russia says that some changes have been made to the visa issuance procedures since the beginning of the year, namely, the increased price of the visa. It has become 100 RUR more expensive and now costs 1,200 RUR, to be paid by the travel agents in Russian currency only. Tourists from other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (including Byelorussia) will have to pay 2,000 RUR, reports Ural Tourist Server.