According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to nongovernmental commercial organizations for a term of 31 to 90 days went down by 46.8% (from 259,966,000 RUR to 138,045,000 RUR) in January-November 2006.

The number of the so-called ‘dacha amnesty’ applications went up in November 2006, says the executive of Federal Registration Service Administration in Sverdlovsk Region Marina Cherkasova. According to Ms Cherkasova, they got relatively few dacha registration applications in September or October. ‘We expect these figures to soar in December, as the registration fee dropped from 500 RUR to 100 RUR on the first of the month,’ she said.

Starting December 4, 2006, the Affordable loan scheme became available to more people in Sverdlovsk Region, namely, to the residents of Mozhga (in the subsidiary of Uralvneshtorgbank at 86 Nagovitsin St.), Solikamsk (in the subsidiary at 34 Uritskiy St.), Tchaikovsky (the bank’s Loan Office at 36 Lenin St.), and to people living in the villages of Foki, Markovskiy, and Prikamskiy (Loan Office in Tchaikovsky). The residents of Lysva, Chusovoi, Lipovaya, Zaimka, Bolshaya Lysva, Obmanka 1 and Obmanka 2, Dubrovo, and Sokol can receive this loan at the bank’s Lysvenskiy subsidiary located at 33

‘In the very near future, the building market is going to experience a problem of insuring the buildings under construction,’ says the General Director of the Union of Sverdlovsk Region Builders Vitaliy Padchin. ‘The WTO requirements state that every used construction site must be insured, yet our insurers are not prepared to work on such terms. Even though they declare that they have this possibility, the insurance fee of 1% off the total sum of the building and assembly jobs is too large a sum. It absolutely must be reduced, given especially that after the cancellation of the licensing

‘Most likely, the disappearance of Hortiza and Myagkov from the market won’t influence the alcohol sales volume,’ the Advertising and PR Director of Kupets Trade Center Ltd. Nadezhda Buriko said to UrBC representative when asked to comment on the statement made by the head or Rospotrebnadzor (the federal consumer rights organization) Gennadiy Onischenko about the possible bans on importing Ukrainian alcohol. ‘We’ll start looking for other options, since no one has banned the foreign and Russian producers so far,’ Ms Buriko explained. ‘This ban on Ukrainian alcohol certainly means lobbying the

‘The process of Russia joining the World Trade Organization requires some protectionist policy for the machine building enterprises on the part of the government,’ First Deputy GD of Ust Katav Wagon Works Viktor Krasavin said to UrBC representative. ‘Some 50% to 60% of the equipment, buildings, and machining facilities of the companies operating in this field are quite worn-out, so our enterprises will have a very hard time competing with their Western counterparts; in fact, this might be virtually impossible,’ Mr Krasavin claims. ‘Some large enterprises are more protected as they receive the

‘The introduction of the new bills that make it easier for the foreign investors to get involved in the Russian banks’ capital must be accompanied by two things simultaneously: firstly, this country’s banking system needs to become more liberalized, as the Central Bank keeps receiving a lot of unfavorable critique in terms of lacking any positive shifts in that respect, which actually means lacking capitalization opportunities. At the moment, we neither deal with the capitalization ourselves nor allow any foreign parties to do it. Secondly, Russia is about to enter the WTO, so the bills of

‘The damage done by the fire at the Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Magnitogorsk might exceed $100m, with $90m needed for the shop restoration,’ the analyst of FINAM Investment Company Denis Gorin said to UrBC representative. ‘Besides, in order to meet its business liabilities, the complex will most likely have to buy some cold-rolled sheets from the other producers, which requires up to $10m monthly (and it will take about one and a half months to restore the sheet-rolling shop). ‘This week, the company’s shares have dropped in price by 1.79% at Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange; yet

Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant is going to supply 2,400 tons of zinc-aluminum alloy to ThyssenKrupp of Germany, the world’s leading high-quality metal goods producer, in February-July 2007. The alloy will be supplied with the help of Euromin, the Swiss trader, says the press officer for the plant. Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant got on the German concern’s supplier list after it had successfully undergone some testing through trial purchases of the alloy. Since 2003, the plant has been producing zinc-based alloys only (the parent metal content coming to 99.995%) known as CZP SHG (CHELYABINSK ZINC PLANT

‘Introducing the Unified State Information System (aka EGAIS) on tobacco market is not good, as the system has not been properly tested in terms of even alcohol market yet,’ said Monetka Trade Center manager Elena Mursina. ‘The Unified State Information System will probably be less painful for the tobacco market compared with the alcohol one, but I don’t believe this will do the market any good,’ she observed. ‘I hope that this will not lead to soaring prices, since this is supposed to be the producer who will cover the equipment and system installation expenses, and not the consumer,’ Ms

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by UralTransBank to nongovernmental commercial organizations for up to 30 days went down by 35.7% (from 47.197m RUR to 30.325m RUR) in January-October 2006.

Russia’s Best Plays festival began in Yekaterinburg on November 30, 2006; the event is conducted by the Golden Mask National Theatre Prize and sponsored by Sberbank of Russia. People living in Yekaterinburg will be able to see 10 plays presented by the theatres from Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Omsk, Abakan, and Vilnyus: all of them became winners and laureates of the Golden Mask Prize. ‘This event was made possible largely due to Sberbank of Russia, our general sponsor. The bank has been doing a great deal for the cultural development of this country. This year, Sberbank is going to

‘The continually increasing price per square meter of housing in 2006 resulted in extremely upscale figures, so right now we are expecting the real estate market to grow more stable; we believe the price should drop by 10% to 15%,’ Vice President of Russian Guild of Realtors Konstantin Aprelev announced at the conference devoted to the region-specific features of real estate market in the Ural Federal District in the first year of the national Available and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens program. ‘However, the real estate prices will definitely grow in the future alongside with the

Starting November 1, 2006, Ural Foil (part of SUAL Holding) has been signing all its contracts with the help of UseTender.com. ‘UseTender.com is a software program that helps large industrial enterprises hold tenders for the supply of goods and rendering of services. This technology makes this labour-consuming process much easier and less complicated; the system automatically tackles the things that normally take a lot of time on the part of supply and sales clerks, such as announcing your needs, doing the tender and receiving the computer-compiled list of competing suppliers,’ the

UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. (part of United Machine Building Works) signed contracts with Mittal Steel Temirtau of Kazakhstan and Mittal Steel Skopje of Macedonia for the supply of over 1,700 hot- and cold-rolling rollers in 2007. The enterprise also expects to sign ?2.5m worth of contracts with Mittal Steel Galati of Romania, Mittal Steel Ostrava of the Czech Republic, and Mittal Steel Poland in the nearest future. All of these companies are part of Arcelor Mittal. In addition, the representatives of Arcelor Mittal and UralmashSpetsstal Ltd. have reached a preliminary agreement concerning the

Buildings meant for commercial purposes and a trade and entertainment center will be put up in Academic construction project area in 2009, the Managing Director of the project Stanislav Pridvizhkin announced at the conference devoted to the region-specific features of real estate market in the Ural Federal District in the first year of the national Available and Comfortable Housing to Russian Citizens program. According to Mr Pridvizhkin, they will start developing the engineering facilities first, as well as building roads and interchanges. At the same time, the first residential quarter

The festive opening ceremony of Yekaterinburg’s third sales and services center of MegaFon Ural, the mobile phone operator, was held at 122 Malyshev St. on December 1, 2006. The new office employs the express servicing system, which means their client can be served 1.5 times faster than usual. All operations from subscribing to the network to paying for the phone connection are performed by one and the same clerk, which saves the customers’ time. This method is currently used in all of the offices of MegaFon Ural set up in 2006. ‘Caring for our customers and providing them with the best

According to the press officer for Yekaterinburg Customs Administration, their special anti-smuggling operations in November (Brand and Consumer) aimed at revealing abuse of intellectual property rights resulted in disclosing a case of abusing Zinger trademark by some legal body that acquired and imported Zinger manicure kits. The examination of the goods by Yekaterinburg customs, however, revealed that some of those kits were definitely counterfeited, as they had no papers from the trademark bearer that would allow selling of these goods or papers that could certify that the goods had

The employees of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil (part of Evraz Group) proved their skills by winning six prizes in the annual professional craftsmanship competition known as Evraz Best Young Worker. The contest was held in Novokuznetsk and comprised ten professional categories, with over 100 young workers from the Group’s metallurgical and ore mining enterprises. Vyacheslav Vitvitskiy became the Best Turner, Sergey Antipin became the Vice Best Repair Person, blast-furnace keeper Konstantin Kropotov, electrician Boris Volkov, gas-fitter Alexei Pamyatnikh, and crane operator

Following the order of Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin, the families of fire victims from Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Magnitogorsk will receive cash benefits, says the spokesperson for the Governor. The relatives of eight of the company’s employees who were killed by the fire and roof failure at the sheet-rolling shop of the complex on November 28, 2006 are to get cash benefits of 100,000 RUR. The money is to be allocated from the regional budget. The funerals of the victims should take place in Magnitogorsk on December 1, 2006. The regional Minister of Industry Evgeniy