Boeing representatives say taking part in the special economic zone Titanium Valley project will give their company an opportunity not to be affected by various calamitous events such the recent earthquake in Japan. However, Boeing has not decided what kind of produce its new facility will come up with yet; nor has the carrier settled down the issue of how much it is going to invest. ‘We could decide upon making titanium airplane parts. It is difficult to speak of exact investment sums just yet. We are talking about approximately $20m to $50m for the development of the production facilities,’

Boeing has not made up its mind yet as to whether the company is going to become a resident of the special economic zone Titanium Valley in Sverdlovsk Region. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin presented the project’s potential to businesses in Yekaterinburg recently. The special economic zone that is expected to house titanium goods production facilities for the needs of the aviation and medical industries will be located near Nizhniy Tagil and Verkhnyaya Salda. Alexander Misharin reminded his audience that the valley residents would enjoy customs duties and VAT reliefs on the

UMMC and Renova Group came up with a joint statement that denies any allegations as to Bank Koltso Urala holding any forged bills of exchange of Koltsovo Airport that had been created to do harm to the airport. ‘This information is not accurate,’ the statement goes. ‘It was detected in the course of an internal investigation that the airport’s former CFO Anton Fedotov abused his power by forging the bills and allegedly transferring them onto Koltso Urala. The investigation dossier has been handed over to the law-enforcement authorities so that criminal action may be taken; the files are now

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin’s suggestion that the dates of the 8th international arms and munitions exhibition Nizhniy Tagil Defence Expo 2011 should be postponed was greeted with the federal authorities’ approval. Head of Russian Government Vladimir Putin signed a decree that states the exhibition will be held on September 8-11, 2011. Visitors to the event will be able to see the produce of Russia’s defense industry’s leading manufacturers, including the members of Rostechnologii State Corporation as well as Concern PVO Almaz-Antey, Oboronservis, OPK Oboronprom, Tactical

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court ruled on March 9, 2011 that Protex Hotel located at 70 Vosmoye Marta St in Yekaterinburg must undergo bankruptcy proceedings, thus closing case А60-10621/2010, Kommersant reports under its Insolvency Announcements heading. Alexei Zamarayev, a member of Alliance Self-Regulatory Organization of Trustees in Bankruptcy, was appointed the company’s trustee in bankruptcy.

Kommersant reports Haulage Director of Russian Railways Alexei Mironov might be appointed Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways. According to the newspaper’s source, the appointment is expected to go through in early April. The railways’ current head Vladimir Suprun will probably become Russian Railways’ Infrastructure Director. Now neither Russian Railways nor Sverdlovsk Region Railways have commented on the possible changes so far.

OAO Uralsvyazinform reports it asked to be taken off the united state register of legal entities today as the company stops operating as OAO Uralsvyazinform and merges with OAO Rostelecom. In accordance with the stock exchange rules, trading in the company’s stock must be halted starting March 28, 2011 until the reorganization date. The merger will be completed and therefore the shares will be converted on the day the entry regarding the dissolution of OAO Uralsvyazinform is fed into the register, which is expected to happen on April 1, 2011.

OAO SKB-Bank’s stock debentures (series BO 03) were promoted from MICEX B to A1 quotations list. This means that the bank fully meets all of MICEX’s financial requirements and enjoys a great level of corporate governance and business transparency. ‘Once they have been promoted to A quotation list, our high-yield debentures become even more investor-attractive as they offer a combination of great reliability and excellent investment opportunities,’ the bank’s analysts report. SKB-Bank went through with this BO 03 bond issue, worth 3 billion RUR altogether, on November 30, 2010. The bonds will

OK Group, one of Russia’s major retailers, announced it was going to put up a hypermarket in Yekaterinburg. The city council reports the construction should begin in 2011 or 2012. The hypermarket will be located at the intersection of Babushkin St and Frontovikh Brigad St, on the premises of the former Turbine Motor Plant. The new store’s area is expected to exceed 7,000 sq m. In addition to a grocery store, the place will house a wellness center, three movie theaters, a bowling club, and a place to play billiards. Now the retail chain actually declared as early as 2008 that it was planning

The shareholding in OAO Koltsovo Airport that currently belongs to Sverdlovsk Region will be offered for sale after 2020, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin said in an interview to Gazeta.ru when asked about how the regional authorities were going to get rid of the airport’s shares as they happen to be the government’s non-core assets. ‘The President is currently signing papers on transferring the shareholding in Koltsovo that belongs to the Russian Federation over to Sverdlovsk Region. Still, what makes you think these shares are non-core assets? All the infrastructure is our

The net profit of Uralenergocherment dropped by 744,000 RUR in the fourth quarter of 2010, or by 18.49%, that is, from 4,023,000 RUR down to 3,279,000 RUR, the company’s report says.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 23, 2011. ‘Luxury sales haven’t been growing in Yekaterinburg lately, the segment is actually highly unstable just now. The sales haven’t plummeted so far, it’s true, but the customer preferences have changed a lot: the number of customers did not go up, whereas the number of market players grew considerably. This is why one cannot make very optimistic predictions for this market sergment,’ General Director of ComsoMall Management Company Andrei Maltsev told UrBC. Now Magazin Magazinov and CB Richard Ellis became an exclusive broker that will now rent shopping space

UrBC, Moscow, March 23, 2011. Bank VTB 24 was faced with a major IT glitch yesterday. The trouble began in the morning and affected all of the bank’s Moscow offices during the day, as well as its ATMs and e-banking services, Kommersant writes. The news of the IT problems was reported by one of VTB 24 customers, who was unable to take money out of his deposit account in the bank’s outlet in Sokolnicheskaya St. He was told that the system got stuck ‘in all Moscow outlets.’ Later on, the news was confirmed by the bank’s website. ‘We are currently updating our IT system, so the incorporation of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 23, 2011. Thai authorities have expressed an interest in organizing a direct scheduled flight from Bangkok to Yekaterinburg and have already made proposals to this extent to a number of local airlines, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin was informed by Thailand’s Ambassador in Russia Chalermpon Tanchitt. ‘We drew up the proposal regarding this direct flight a few months ago and we sent it to three air carriers, namely,Thai Airways, Bangkok Airlines и AirAsia,’ the Ambassador said. The official explained Thai Airways said they couldn’t provide an

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 23, 2011. Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service annulled the brokerage licenses of OOO KB Uniastrum Bank, with HQ in Moscow, and OOO Barclays Capital (also Moscow-based). The licenses entitled the companies to deal in futures and options transactions, the service reports. The decisions were taken by the service after the two banks had placed corresponding requests and produced proof of having met all their contractual obligations.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 23, 2011. Sverdlovsk Region is not one of the places where Hilton Worldwide is planning to introduce its hotels any time soon. The hotel chain signed a few management agreements with five hotels that are currently being put up in Russia and whose total number of rooms comes to 870. Two hotels, both branded Hampton by Hilton, will soon open in Omsk and in the west of Moscow, with tree more hotels opening in Moscow, Astrakhan, and Krasnodar; these three will be called Hilton Garden Inn, Kommersant reports. Hilton Worldwide says they currently run three hotels in

The launch of the international military intervention in Libya has already resulted in an immediate market response. ‘Provided certain factors are at play, such as the growing euro rate, exporters’ sales, growing tax payments and rising raw stuffs prices, the dollar might decline to 28 RUR. However, this process isn’t as simple as it looks. The fall of the dollar rate has to do with the fact that the market might also pay attention to the developments that actually support the dollar, such as the possible fall in the oil prices once the military action in Lybia stops, China going for stricter

Russia has been guaranteed by the Egyptian authorities that the country’s tourists would be safe and sound there, so it is expected that the possibility for the Russian tourists arriving at the Egyptian resorts will reopen soon, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov announced on Monday, RIAN Tourism reports. ‘We take it that things are getting back to normal in Egypt. Our embassy representatives went to Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh a little while ago and came back quite reassured,’ Lavrov said in the course of negotiations with his Egyptian counterpart Nabil al-Arabi. The minister

Ural Airlines is launching its new Yekaterinburg-Carlsbad flight today. ‘Increasingly more passengers are booking flights to the Czech Republic, so, in addition to the already existing daily flights from Yekaterinburg to Prague we are introducing a scheduled one to Carlsbad,’ the airline reports. The flight will be operated every Tuesday on an A320 plane. The in-flight time comes to 4,5 hours. The cheapest tickets are available for ?299 plus fees.

According to the data available as of March 1, 2011, 9,020 companies were officially placed on the All-Russian Travel Agents Register, with 1,520 agents registering themselves after July 15, 2010. The greatest increase in the number of agents was noticed in Moscow and Moscow Region, where the number of companies went up by 327 travel agents and reached 2,100 companies. In Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Region, the number of travel agents rose by 111 and now comes to 509 companies. In Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region, the number of travel agents increased by 78 agents and amounted to 338