‘We haven’t received any papers saying that we have to withdraw any of our cars,’ Warranty Engineer of Autoland Sever Alexei Frolov said to UrBC representative. Autoland Sever is the official Mitsubishi Motors and Ford dealer in Yekaterinburg. Ford has recently had to withdraw 1.2m pickups, SUVs, and vans due to some problems with the cruise control system that might actually cause a fire. These were not the new cars, which usually is the case, but the familiar and tested ones that have been withdrawn.

ChelyabEnergro JSC, Chelyabinsk Region networked energy supplier, does not possess any stake in the authorized capital of Energia CJSC (dealing in real estate) any more: this was part of RAO UES of Russia project aimed at its companies getting rid of assets non-core to the business. The decision was made by the Board of Directors in the hope that selling the share holding would increase the profitability of their capital, build up on capitalization of earnings and attract more investments. Besides, selling such assets will allow the company to significantly reduce expenses and use the

Municipal Assembly of Deputies of Miass, Chelyabinsk Region, has been drawing up their response to the application placed by the employees of Basalt CJSC concerning the competence of the mayor to interfere in the business activity of a private enterprise, appear for another private enterprise, and accept remuneration for it. At the beginning of June, the General Director of Basalt CJSC Gennady Brekhov warned the shareholders about the possible takeover of the company by Fenox, their German-Belarussian rival. The other local producers of car parts supported his apprehensions. According to Mr

The Board meeting of Zinc Plant of Chelyabinsk resulted in the decision to schedule the extraordinary general meeting for September 18, 2006. The points on the agenda concern agreeing on the prospective profitable transactions.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin held a meeting with Chairman of Basic Element CJSC (a large vehicle producing company) Oleg Deripaska. As the spokesperson for the Governor said to UrBC representative, the meeting was devoted to discussing the business activity of Ural Car Factory JSC and Chelyabinsk Road Vehicles Ltd. (both are part of GAS Group, controlled by Basic Element CJSC). Chelyabinsk Region Government and GAS Group signed a social and economic cooperation agreement valid until 2009 in March 2006. The agreement provides for cooperation in the field of building up the

In the nearest future, SUBR JSC (regional bauxite producer, part of SUAL Group) will launch Dialogue, an intranet communication system. The company’s GD Viktor Radko has already issued the corresponding order. The system includes setting up of an around-the-clock telephone number. One can now leave a notice concerning any disturbing questions via voice mail. The company is also going to install special mailboxes in all of its subdivisions. Any employee will be permitted to transfer his or her questions to the company’s top management via the mailboxes. The introduction of the Dialogue system

License No. 35098 giving Uralwestcom CJSC the right to render cellular communication services in NMT-450i standard will expire on September 1, 2006. Therefore, since September 1, 2006 no cellular communication services in NMT-450i standard will be rendered and the company will confine its operations to running the Skylink-Yekaterinburg network. This was reported by Uralwestcom CJSC PR-department.

Urals branch of commercial bank AGROPROMCREDIT Ltd. was introduced in Yekaterinburg. The branch office, located in the center of the city (5 Karl Liebknecht St.), is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day except Sundays and Saturdays. This was reported by the bank PR-department. The bank services businesses operating in power, oil-and-gas, coal and other industries, insurance and financial companies, nongovernmental pension funds, a number of regional governmental organizations and municipalities. AGROPROMCREDIT Ltd. is operating in ‘financial supermarket’ format: not only are the bank’s

Tashtagolskiy subsidiary of Evrazruda JSC (part of Evraz Group) has recently completed the major overhaul that had been preventing the workers from mining ore for a whole month. Yet they were still able to supply the concentrate from the earlier stock, and all the repairs were fully completed well before the deadline. While the subsidiary was put out of operation, the company’s experts were able to speed up the reconstruction of the technological facilities at the processing plant. They converted the plant to a two-phase ore concentrate processing scheme, which raises the iron content by

Chelyabinsk division of South Ural Railroad shipped over 3.437 million tons of goods, with the average daily amount coming to 110,871 tons. The workers operating at the stations of Chelyabinsk Region shipped the average of 61,535 tons daily. The workers operating in Zlatoust Region shipped the average of 49,518 tons a day, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

Former Sales Director of the company’s office in Rostov, Viktor Dolzhenko was appointed Head of Yekaterinburg subsidiary of Troika Dialogue, reports the spokesperson for Troika Dialogue Group. ‘This appointment matters a lot to me; I’ve been part of the corporate team for a number of years, and I’m happy to be given a chance to contribute to the business development in the capacity of the regional director,’ Mr Dolzhenko said.

Mechel-Bank JSC started dealing in loans given via VISA plastic cards in Tyumen on August 1, 2006. The introduction of the bank’s subsidiary in Tyumen was registered by the Bank of Russia Administration in Chelyabinsk Region on June 7, 2006. The office has an ATM providing both cash and information concerning ones’ account.

ChelyabEnergro JSC, Chelyabinsk Region networked energy supplier, does not possess any stake in the authorized capital of Energia CJSC (dealing in real estate) any more: this was part of RAO UES of Russia project aimed at its companies getting rid of assets non-core to the business. The decision was made by the Board of Directors in the hope that selling the share holding would increase the profitability of their capital, build up on capitalization of earnings and attract more investments. Besides, selling such assets will allow the company to significantly reduce expenses and use the

Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil JSC (part of Evraz Group) is going to renovate 50,000 square meters of roads within this summer. The company’s employees from the land improvement department have already cleaned up the entire production site, created flowerbeds and lawns, and planted 30,000 flowers and 1,500 trees and shrubs. Using the needed equipment, the special division of the department deals in renovating of both external and internal roads and routes on a daily basis, reports the spokesperson for Evraz Group.

There are now almost twice as many foreign workers employed in the region legally than before. According to the Federal Migration Service in Sverdlovsk Region, the figure has soared from 7,700 permits in 2005 to 14,500 permits in 2006. 70,000 migrant workers from the NIS have registered with the regional authorities since the beginning of the year, which exceeds the figures for 2005 by 6%. These workers were in greatest demand in the fields of building industry, trade, and consumer services.

A group of PESCO executives and some representatives of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technologies of Japan have recently visited Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant within the framework of the Russian-Japanese MOX-fuel cooperation program. The Russian party is represented by a research institute of Dimitrovgrad and Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant of Sverdlovsk Region (the fuel assemblies with MOX-fuel are now being tested at the plant). In the future, fast-fission reactors using MOX-fuel should become the basic component of the closed nuclear fuel cycle, which will

Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil JSC (part of Evraz Group) has been developing new software needed for No. 5 blast furnace, No. 5 cokery, and circulation degassing device at the converter shop. All these bits of equipment are controlled automatically, and every units has a special program with a database and monitor unit. The company’s computer programmers are now fixing the order in which the facilities should function in order to perform best and designing a supporting set of programs to be included in the company’s information network. The united activity-monitoring

According to provisional estimations, the total amount of direct insurance premiums received by Ingosstrakh branches affiliated to the company’s Ural Regional Center has come to 511.006m RUR during the first half of 2006, which exceeds the corresponding figures for the previous year by 44%. The voluntary insurance premiums amounted to 439.203m RUR (an increase of 48%), including 101.266m RUR of personal insurance fees (an increase of 41%). The property insurance premiums came to 324.935m RUR (an increase of 48%), whereas the liability insurance premiums increased by 120% up to 13.002m RUR.

Within the first half of 2006, the long-distance telephone communication gain of Uralsvyazinform JSC decreased by 70.4% (or 1,163.8m RUR). The drop was driven by the introduction of some new legal regulations since January 1, 2006 and by an increase in outgoing calls within the intraareal network. Thus, the landline calls amounted to 425.8m minutes, while the landline/mobile ones amounted to 1,723.4m minutes. The reduction of intraareal telephone connection tariffs by about 4% from September 1, 2005 also contributed to the drop. The information was reported to UrBC representative by

Karabashmed CJSC of Chelyabinsk Region, part of Russian Copper Company, is carrying out the third stage of its reconstruction. The company accomplished a cold start of an iron-and-steel furnace with immersible tuyere produced by Ausmelt of Australia. A cold start is test launch of a furnace without charging. It is directed at checking the joint performance of the furnace units and systems. The furnace launch will complete the third stage of Karabashmed reconstruction. The furnace designed by Australian specialists is able to smelt blister copper from the very low copper minerals, which allows