The foreign trade turnover of Sverdlovsk Region reached the point of $9bn in 2006, which exceeds the figures for 2005 by 20%, reports the spokesperson for the Ministry for International and Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region. The share of exported goods and services amounted to $7.2bn; the share of the import came to approximately $1.8bn, or four times less than that of the export share. The region is currently cooperating with 115 states; its partnerships with Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, China, and Germany have proved to be the most fruitful ones.

Ural Airlines made a special offer called Your Dreams – Our Wings in December 2006; the offer provided for a travel tour lottery among the company’s clients. The winner was identified in the course of an online drawing on January 1, 2007. This lucky passenger’s name was Olga Bazhenova, who could choose between a trip to Velikiy Ustyug, Russian Santa’s place of abode, and a visit to the Moscow-based beauty salon run by the leading expert of Slava Zaitsev Fashion House, reports the company’s press officer.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved of a Russian-American transaction on behalf of the U.S. Government. The transaction involves Evraz Group, a Russian company that has been allowed to acquire Oregon Steel Mills Inc., The Oregonian newspaper reported today. According to the newspaper, the U.S. Government sees no reasons for preventing the acquisition from happening in terms of national security. Evraz Group announced the purchase of Oregon Steel for $2.3bn on November 20, 2006. According to the Russian Company’s press release, Evraz and Oregon Steel

The experts of Ural Airlines believe that more people are going to travel to Israel after this country’s Ministry of Interior made visa procedures much easier for the citizens of the Commonwealth of Independent States. ‘The Yekaterinburg-Tel Aviv flight used to be a charter one and only available in the summer, yet this year it’s become regular; one can use this direct flight once in a fortnight on Wednesdays; the passengers will travel by A-320. This destination enjoys stable demand that is believed to have all the grounds for becoming even greater. The flight is mainly taken by people who

The solemn opening ceremony of the new subsidiary of SberBank of Russia took place in Kurgan on December 25, 2006. This new office offers the full range of services for small businesses, including loans, point-of-sale systems based on BiPrint and Client-SberBank programs, dealing in securities, and other things.

The Ural division of Rostehnadzor, Russia’s state technological safety watchdog, initiated a number of administrative lawsuits against companies that exceeded their atmospheric emission limits and dumped harmful substances into the local rivers. These offenders will now have to pay additional fines for their emissions. Nizhneturinskoye division of TyumenTransGas Ltd. that has accidentally let 1, 493,390 tons of methane escape into the air must pay 4.032m RUR to make up for this. Pelymskoye division of TyumenTransGas Ltd. will have to pay 447,600 RUR for the same offense, reports

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to local governments and financial bodies for a term of 181 days to 1 year went down 52% (from 8.334m RUR to 4m RUR) in January-December 2006.

Eighteen violations of the environmental legislation requirements were found at Rezhnickel Production Association in the course of the inspection conducted by the Ural division of, Russia’s state environmental watchdog. As a result, this authority issued sixteen orders and three reports on administrative offenses, with 9,000 RUR worth of fines to be paid, reports the press officer of Rostehnadzor.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of deposits placed by nongovernmental profit-making organizations in UralTransBank for a term of 91 to 180 days went down 94.5% (from 86.918m RUR to 4.778m RUR) in January-December 2006.

‘Road transport will start operating in the area as soon as the first block of buildings has been commissioned, and trams and trolleys will become available in another one and a half to two years. This delay is due to the difficulties of making tracks,’ says Academic construction project manager Stanislav Pridvishkin. ‘A high-speed tram is expected to be introduced in 2010, when the first series of trade and business centers is done. The advantage of this new means of transport, still new to the Urals, is that one can get downtown in fifteen to twenty minutes, which is really good, given the

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to local governments and financial bodies for a term of 91 to 180 days went down 80% (from 3m RUR to 600,000 RUR) in January-December 2006.

The report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affect the health of Sverdlovsk Region population indicates that the total amount of air pollutants emitted by the regional chemical enterprises reached the point of 3,111 tons; a great share of the emissions (735 tons, or 23.6%) was produced by Uralati, the asbestos goods producer.

According to the report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affect the health of Sverdlovsk Region population, the total amount of pollutants emitted by the region’s microbiological enterprises came to 641 tons, of which 5.2 tons were filtered and sterilized. Thus the recovery rate amounted to 8.1% (the figure comes to 43.7% for solids and to 5.7% for liquids and gaseous substances). Lobvinskiy Biochemical Plant is reported to be Sverdlovsk Region’s major air polluter with its 5.82 tons of emissions (98.9%), and it still has not slowed down.

SibAcademBank completed its merger with Uralvneshtorgbank on December 22, 2006 adopting the name of URSA Bank. ‘The new bank aims to be the best in order to stay loved. This is why it’s crucial that its new name arouses warm feelings, and we’ll do our best to make sure these feelings come to stay,’ stressed Chairman Igor Kim. This merger of the two major players on the market resulted in the arrival of a federally important bank capable of competing with Russia’s leading crediting institutions. Its reliability, openness, and great efficiency have retained their status as the key development

According to the report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affect the health of Sverdlovsk Region population, the regional non-ferrous metallurgical enterprises dumped 215.93m cubic meters of manufacturing water into the local rivers and lakes, of which 38.1m cubic meters (17.6%) were not recycled and 26.05% cubic meters (12%) were under-recycled. 70% of the under-recycled manufacturing water came from the recycling facilities of VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation based in Verkhnyaya Salda.

Based on the report on the state of the environment and the way environmental factors affected the health of Sverdlovsk Region population, Svyatogor (part of Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company) produced more waste than any other non-ferrous metallurgical enterprise in the region. The company produced 3,808,900 tons of waste, but only 1,247,300 tons were recycled. The manufacturing waters dumped by the non-ferrous metallurgical companies are polluted with toxic mineral substances and reagents as well as heavy metal salts, arsenic, tungsten, stibium, sulphates, chlorides, etc.

MegaFon Ural (aka Ural GSM) went through a merger with Mobicom Kirov on January 1, 2007. In compliance with the federal law, Ural GSM took upon all the rights and obligations of Mobicom Kirov, so the subscribers of the latter won’t have to face any changes in the terms of service (they all keep their phone number, their personal account, and their paying schemes). Unless a client using Mobicom Kirov sends its operator a letter asking to cancel their services, this client is seen as having an agreement with Ural GSM (based on the federal law), reports the spokesperson for Ural GSM.

‘We’ll only start offering apartments in Academic district at the end of 2007, yet we are already signing contracts with the stores and consumer services, so we can tell you who is going to own this or that building. This contracting process is actually progressing much faster than the construction itself,’ says the project manager Stanislav Pridvizhkin. ‘This means we’ll be able to avoid the awkwardness of having the dwellings without the infrastructure; this is the point I’d like to emphasize. This is the very idea of the multi-faceted area development, and the would-be Academic district is

‘We are going to draw up a schedule for closing down local gambling houses in the nearest future,’ the press secretary for the local council’s Consumer Market Committee Oleg Zemtsov said to UrBC representative. Mr Zemtsov believes that only large gambling chains are going to operate in the city, and the smaller chains and sole traders have to think of the future of their business right now. The federal law concerning the state regulation of the gambling industry came into force on January 1, 2007, which means that all the gambling establishments that do not meet the legal requirements must

The recent meeting of creditors of HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (the general contractor of Noviy Grad, the local builder) resulted in declaring the company insolvent after all the papers produced by the developer had been analyzed, reports Olga Rushitskaya, the company’s trustee in bankruptcy. ‘This is why I suggest setting up a committee of bankruptcy,’ Ms Rushitskaya said. The issue of setting up such a committee appeared on the agenda of the meeting, yet the decision was not voted for. The trustee in bankruptcy of HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. finally decided to place all the papers concerning the company