Sverdlovsk Region Government keeps coordinating a series of meetings with the heads of the region’s largest enterprises expected to pay some income tax to the region’s budget in 2011, the Governor’s press officer reports. Acting head of the inter-district tax inspectorate dealing with the region’s largest taxpayers Olga Shabalina says some local enterprises are now making more tax payments in general. According to Ms Shabalina, Uralmashzavod paid 10.5% more taxes in 2011 than last year, but this was due to personal income tax, as the company keeps employing more people and paying them higher

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court rejected the claim laid by Sverdlovsk Region prosecution authorities regarding declaring invalid a certain normative act, namely, the region’s law on imposing corporate property tax (subparagraphs 12 and 13), Kommersant reports. The prosecution authorities claimed that the subparagraphs in question did not comport with the certain points of Russia’s Tax Code and that they violate the existing Competition Protection Act. Now the amendments to the law were made in October 2010 and came into effect at the start of 2011. According to one of these amendments,

Russian Railwasy and STM-Service (Sinara-Transport Machines) signed a maintenance agreement involving Sinara electric locomotives produced by Sinara Group and Siemens AG joint venture called Ural Locomotives, Sinara Group’s PR Department reports. Under the terms of the agreement, STM-Service will have to provide good quality maintenance needed to keep 2ES6 locos 001-137 in good condition.

Fitch Ratings carried out a number of rating researches involving the daughter companies of the Italian bank UniCredit S.p.A. (A/Rating Watch Negative/F2) based in Central and Eastern Europe. The research was done after the bank’s long-term Issuer Default Rating (A) was placed on the Rating Watch, with Negative rating outlook. The rating agency reconsidered the rating outlook for the long-term Issuer Default Rating of UniCreditBank Russia (BBB+) from Positive to Stable. This change reflects the growing uncertainty as to the parent enterprise’s capacity to support its daughter banks in the

Koltsovo Airport filling station is going to launch a 2.6% jet fuel price increase, so the fuel will come to cost 29,150 RUR per ton, the station reports. The Yekaterinburg-based airport’s press service informed Interfax-Ural that the increase in the price of fuel has to do with the suppliers’ growing prices. Meanwhile, the price of jet fuel already went up by 4.4% on September 11, 2011.

Unilever and Concern Kalina announced that the former signed an agreement on purchasing 82% of Yekaterinburg-based concern’s shares. The price of the 82% shareholding comes to approximately 16.7 RUR (?390m). Upon the completion of the transaction, Unilever intends to make an obligatory buy-out offer to the rest of Kalina’s stockholders involving the rest of the shares not covered by the initial agreement. This will be done in accordance with the procedure and the terms set out in the current Russian legislation.

Yekaterinburg Zhelesnodorozhny District Court pronounced a verdict of guilty upon a Yekaterinburg dweller named U. who had been charged with copyright violation and five instances of illegal access to computer data. The court’s verdict was based on the evidence provided by the state prosecutor. It was determined by the court that U. used his Internet connection to copy a number of computer programs onto CDs between March 12, 2011 and March 14, 2011. The computer software in question is copyrighted by Microsoft Corporation, Corel Corporation, 1C, and Adobe Systems Incorporated. What is more,

Russia’s leading pipe manufacturer and OCTG supplier Chelyabinsk Tube-Rolling Plant came up with a performance and consolidated financial report (drawn up in accordance with the International Accounting Standards) for the six months of 2011. In the first half of the year, the plant’s steel pipes sales reached 1,012,000 tons, which exceeded the figures for the first half of 2010 (771,000 tons) by 41%. The large-diameter pipes sales rose by 91%, those of oil country tubular goods – by 16%, those of industrial weldless pipes – by 20% (against 521,000 tons, 117,000 tons, and 280,000 tons last

The net profit of NOMOS-Bank plunged by 94.3% in the third quarter of 2011 and came to 151.6m RUR. The bank reports that the company’s net interest rate profit resulting from its main business activity and constituting the primary part of their profit kept growing, yet the negative re-evaluation of the stock led to a decrease in the net profit.

The net profit of Rostelecom United Company (calculated in accordance with the International Accounting Standards) decreased by 5.7%, that is, down to 10bn RUR, in comparison with the first quarter of the year, states the consensus forecast prepared by Prime on the basis of data provided by analysts.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s leading mobile technologies company, and the telecommunications provider MegaFon announced the price and the selling details of their Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 sold exclusively at the mobile operator’s Russia-based outlets. The innovational pad with an installed 3G cell communication unit hit the shelves of MegaFon’s stores on October 15, 2011. The device will be sold for 22,900 RUR – this is the price of the 16Gb-memory make. An ‘older’ 32-Gb make will be available for 26,990 RUR starting late October. The device comes in two colors, black and white.

Rosaviation halted Avianova’s aircraft operator license, the agency’s head Alexander Neradko told RIA Novosti. The low-cost airline stopped selling any tickets on October 2, 2011, and stopped operating altogether on October 10. Avianova’s acting Director-General Konstantin Teterin said earlier that the airline would apply to Rosaviation for having its aircraft operator license halted, but not annulled.

The Japanese Corporation announced it was going to call off 1.6m LCD Bravia TV sets after customers started taking them back to the store for repairs; the general complaint was that ‘the TV sets are smoldering’. According to Reuters, this ‘special effect’ has to do with the fact that some parts of the TV sets happen to melt, producing smoke and an unpleasant smell. The TV sets will be called off all over the world, the agency says.

Ural Airlines gave up on the idea of purchasing medium-distance planes and is only going to buy long-haul aircraft in the future, the company’s Director-General Sergey Skuratov told reporters in the course of the recent Russia-EU summit. We gave up on buying those [medium-distance planes. – Editors’ note.],’ he said, explaining that the airline was initially planning on buying medium-distance ATR 42 planes. Starting 2013, we intend to buy long-haul aircraft,’ RIA Novosti quotes Skuratov as saying. The executive said that the company was to increase its A320 fleet of vehicles up to

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service took criminal action against the telecommunications providers MTS and Vympelcom, accusing the two companies of a price collusion related to their sales of iPhones. Now Apple reports that its wholesale prices have not changed, nor has the company offered any advice on the price of smartphones in Russia or controlled the pricing policy of either Vympelcom or MTS. Nevertheless, most points of sale offered these mobile phones at identical prices everywhere. The FAS believes this stems from the fact that the two importers secretly agreed on giving up

Yekaterinburg police and customs officers stopped the sales of counterfeit mobile phones in the city. The damage done to Nokia Corporation’s intellectual property is estimated at over 66m RUR, Ural Customs Administration’s press service reports. Now the officers inspected one of the sales outlets in a Yekaterinburg-based well-known shopping mall, confiscating 153 Vertu Ferrari A-00258 Special Edition phones, 81 Vertu Ferrari A-000369 Limited Edition phones, and 9 Vertu Boucheron phones. The files of the conducted inspection contain the proof of the sales being illegitimate and the data on the

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) underwent external audit by Ford Motor Company a short while ago; the audit was focused on the company’s automobile body sheets production. Nearly all the departments were involved in the audit procedures. Ford Motor Company representatives visited MMK’s oxygen converter shop, the coatings shop, and sheet-rolling shops No. 5, 10, and 11 that are involved in the automobile body sheet production. A presentation on MMK produce’s potential and the company’s production possibilities was also made. Besides, Ford’s experts got acquainted with the particulars

Sverdlovsk Region Government agreed on the results of tenders where the applicants competed for state guarantees for a number of Yekaterinburg-based projects. For one, a billion-ruble state guarantee will be offered for the subway construction in Yekaterinburg, and another 1.75bn RUR will be directed to the development of the new Academic district’s infrastructure development.

The recent negative developments in the global economy that will probably bring it down to the level of the year 2008 are to affect the Russian banks’ capital adequacy badly: the figure could go well below 10% against the 16.7% in the middle of 2011. This, in its turn, might lead to a demotion of Moody’s ratings assigned to Russia’s banks, RIA Novosti reports. This message was delivered by Moody’s press service.

Most of exported items (that is, over 40% of the total export volume) that Yekaterinburg Customs must handle are still metals and metal goods; chemical produce makes up 42% of all the export shipments; machinery, equipment, and vehicles make up 5.5%, while timber and pulp products make up 2.5% of export shipments. As for the import of goods around Yekaterinburg Customs area, this came to $1.6bn, with 86.6% of imported goods’ worth coming from the countries of the far abroad ($1.bn) and 13.4% of imported goods’ worth coming from the CIS ($213.3m). The physical volume of imported cargo amounted