Nizhniy Tagil Customs points processed 1,360 entry forms for goods accounted for in the foreign trade turnover statistics in December 2011, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. As far as Nizhniy Tagil Customs area was concerned, in December its most active foreign trade partners were Thailand (whose share of the local foreign trade turnover reached 15.7%), the United States (11.6%), the Netherlands (9.5%), Ukraine (8.7%), Iran (6.9%), Great Britain (6.5%), Germany (5.9%), Italy (5.5%), Denmark (5.1%), the Czech Republic (4.3%), and India (3.9%).

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court confirmed a voluntary settlement between the plaintiff Yekaterinburg City and the defendant Valode & Pistre Management SA. The plaintiff is to pay the defendant ?2.3m; this information is available via the court’s website. Now Yekaterinburg City insisted that its contractor agreement with the French company Valode & Pistre Management SA for the completion of some design work should be declared invalid in the part relating to obligations. The plaintiff also insisted on being paid back ?13.5m that had earlier been transferred to the agency as an

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (a member of ChTPZ Group) has been successfully certified for compliance with the international standard of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (OHSAS 18001). The OHSAS 18001 certificate confirms that a company systematically works on reducing production and professional risks and cares for the personnel’s safety at work. Prior to receiving the certificate, Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant completed a number of crucial tasks: the plant developed the necessary normative documentation, identified and assessed the production activity risks, trained its

The files relating to the criminal lawsuit involving the Russian businessmen Oleg Deripaska and Iskander Makhmudov arrived in Moscow after the case was first processed by the Spanish authorities, Interfax’s informed sources report. ‘This is a rather bulky dossier comprising tens of volumes, which is why it took over a month to have the files delivered from Spain to Russia,’ a source familiar with the case told the agency. According to this informant, the files arrived in Russia at the end of December 2011.

The United States Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul is to arrive in Russia next week; the exact date of his visit to Yekaterinburg has not been announced yet, the United States Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg’s press secretary Lada Tikhonova told UrBC. ‘Michael McFaul is expected to come to Moscow next week. It’s difficult to say just now when he is going to visit the capital of the Urals. Nevertheless, I should say that all of his predecessors did pay a visit to Yekaterinburg,’ Ms Tikhonova said. The press secretary also added that a video conference might be held with McFaul. ‘The

ИАА «УралБизнесКонсалтинг» 10 августа и 11 августа 2011 года был помещен материал под заголовком «Черные рейдеры «в законе»?»

The auction aimed at selling a 100% stake in the state-run insurance company Yugoria (one of Russia’s Top 15 insurers) has been scheduled for June 11, 2012, Russian Auction House reports. 100% of Yugoria’s shares belongs to Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region Yugra. The region’s government has already determined that the opening bid should come to 5.2bn RUR. The company’s authorized capital comes to 1.83bn RUR. Russian Auction House was appointed as the seller of the region’s property to private proprietors, RIA Novosti points out. Applications to take part in the auction are already being

Ural Airlines finished last year off with yet another record. On New Year’s Eve, December 31, the airline’s 2,500.000th passenger of the year checked in for a flight for the first time in the carrier’s history, the company’s press service reports. This record-setting customer was Alexei Kharitonov, who was flying from Yekaterinburg to Barcelona via flight 3787. Alexei is Ural Airlines’ long-time customer who joined the company’s bonus Wings Club in January 2007 and flew over 150 times with this airline. The air carrier is going to contact the winner very soon to present him some valuable

The British company Rolls-Royce Motor Cars reports record-breaking sales for the last year: over 3,500 automobiles were sold in 2011, which was 31% more than in 2010. According to the BBC, for the first time ever China bought more such cars than any other country last year, leaving behind North America. Sales grew fastest in Germany and Russia, where the number of sold automobiles doubled against 2010, Interfax reports. However, the car manufacturer does not disclose the information on how many automobiles were actually sold in each particular country.

The U.S.-based leasing company ILFC demanded that Vladivostok Avia should stop using three Airbus 320 and two Airbus 330 planes: a note to this extent was sent to the company’s Director-General Dmitri Tischuk as well as to Aeroflot on December 29, 2011, Vedomosti reports. The note says the air carrier has about $5m worth of unpaid leasing debts. Vladivostok Avia responded by announcing that the airline would meet its obligations in full and would operate all the prospective flights in accordance with the winter timetable for 2011/2012, the airline’s PR Director Alexander Alekseyev reports.

The state-run Sverdlovsk Region Government Car Park is planning to conduct an electronic auction for the purchase of five Toyota Camrys or their equivalents on January 26, 2012. The opening (and the maximum) price of the purchase contract is 7.5m RUR; this information is available via the government purchases website. The requirements for the characteristics of the cars include the following: the maximum speed must come to at least 210 kph and the automobiles must reach a speed of 100 kph within 7.1 seconds. The warranty must come to at least 36 months or 100,000 km worth of kilometrage. The

Order No. 62-11-1757/pz-i issued by Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service on December 28, 2011 halts the issue of Sverdlovsk Region-based Ural University Complex’s ordinary registered uncertified shares.

An economic mission from Saxony is planning to visit Innoprom exhibition in Yekaterinburg in the summer of 2012. The news was reported to Sverdlovsk Region’s Minister for International & Foreign Economic Relations Alexander Kharlov in a letter from Sven Morlok, Saxony State Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor, and Transport. Morlok observes that the economic cooperation between the state of Saxony and Sverdlovsk Region has noticeably moved forward. He feels that the German delegation taking part in Innoprom 2011 had an important part to play in this; so did a technological forum on the

Under the Russian Federation President’s Decree NR 1640 dated December 16, 2011, the Director-General of Ural Airlines Sergey Skuratov was awarded with the Order of Friendship. Russia’s Transport Minister Igor Levitin congratulated both the company and Sergey Skuratov on the event, the airline’s press service reports. ‘I cordially congratulate you on receiving the state award and wish you a happy New Year and a merry Christmas! I wish you great health, happiness, and further success in working for the good of Russia,’ his message states.

Plane A320 belonging to AirArabia that was flying from Sharjah to Yekaterinburg was unable to land in Koltsovo Airport due to a blizzard, the airport’s call center informed Interfax-Ural. According to the center, the plane was redirected to an alternate field in Chelyabinsk. Koltsovo Airport’s website states that seven more flights are now delayed, including those from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Dubai. Five more planes are waiting to depart.

According to Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Economics Evgeny Sofrygin, the promotion of the region’s long-term rating from BB to BB+ by Standard & Poor’s points to Sverdlovsk Region’s financial stability. ‘The promotion of the region’s long-term rating had to do with an improved liquidity situation as well as with meeting the target figures for budget revenues,’ the Minister feels. ‘We believe that potential investors will see this promotion as a sort of green light to arrive in this Region, and this is definitely a good thing,’ he notes.

MMK METIZ (a member of MMK Group) is now producing more steel bars with the help of innovational nano-technologies. According to MMK Group’s PR Department, such bars are used to make a new generation of railway sleepers. The conventional railway sleepers come with a set of forty-four wire strings with the diameter of 3mm each, all made of high-carbon steel. Now that the railway transport is speedier and has more loads to deal with, a new technology is implemented that uses only four pivots with the diameter of 9.6mm to 10mm; these pivots are stronger and sturdier than the older structure.

The BRIC countries have to be taken off the list of investment goals: the time for this group’s intensive growth is now over, Goldman Sachs warns. BRIC will come to be replaced by a set of eleven most densely populated developing countries, Gazeta.Ru reports. ‘We have witnessed the peak in BRIC’s growth. Over the last decade, the mere idea of BRIC has been enough to attract investments. It is much more difficult now to believe that just having the faith in their future growth is enough to get these investments,’ says Goldman Sachs economist Dominic Wilson in his review on the BRIC countries

Workers of Tyumen Customs and officers of Tyumen Region division of the Internal Affairs Department have confiscated over 4,600 units of counterfeit goods since the beginning of 2011, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. Now throughout the year, the customs and the police officers coordinated weekly joint searches aimed at finding counterfeit products on the territory of Tyumen Region in Ishim, Tobolsk, and Tyumen. Among the confiscated goods were fake Adidas, Reebok, Sochi 2014, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel items as well as toys such as Bakugan and Moxie girls and DVDs.

UTair Airlines’ Boeing flying from Novosibirsk to Moscow had to perform an emergency landing at Roschino Airport in Tyumen. ‘The plane performed an emergency landing because of a flight attendant who was not feeling well,’ Tyumen Public Prosecution Authorities for Transportation’s Chief Assistant Natalya Bondarenko told Interfax-Ural on Wednesday. There were 126 passengers and six crew members on board the plane; no one was hurt. This is actually not the first time UTair’s airplanes get involved in the incidents of such sort: in the fall, the air carrier’s planes had to perform a whole series