‘The Russian piracy is actually not as bad as it used to be, with its level going down even during the recession. However, the general situation is still alarming. We have to look up to Europe in this respect,’ Microsoft’s President for Russia Nikolai Pryanishnikov said at a press briefing in Yekaterinburg. ‘This is an important point for the Sverdlovsk Region’s IT cluster that is currently under construction. It’s obvious that if the Urals-generated software gets copied illegally, no profits will result and no cluster development will follow,’ he noted.

Microsoft Corporation is ready to support the creation of an IT cluster in Sverdlovsk Region, IT & Communications Minister Irina Bogdanovitch announced at a a press briefing in Yekaterinburg. ‘We met Microsoft representatives today to speak about a number of issues. First of all, we talked about the IT cluster development and looked into the possible ways of supporting this project. This could be some financial aid offered to the startups, or software support,’ Ms Bogdanovitch said. ‘The second point under discussion was our cooperation within the framework of the Accessible Information

It was decided in the course of OAO Bank VTB’s extraordinary general meeting that OAO Bank VTB Severo-Zapad should be reorganized through a merger with VTB, the former bank’s reports say. VTB has already confirmed the merging agreement and stated that the company’s creditors should be informed of the news.

OAO Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) placed an application for the insolvency of OAO Maxi Group with the court. The application is to be considered by Moscow Arbitration Court, the company reports. On February 18, 2011, the court has to decide whether the application is well-grounded.

Ural Federal University is now busy elaborating its basic brand concept in cooperation with OOO Brandflight and Thomas Gad. ‘Thomas Gad is an outstanding, world-known brand design and development expert. He is the man behind the contemporary non-academic thinking framework based on the globally recognized four-dimensional branding philosophy. The 4D branding has a thousand uses outside the marketing field, for example, in any other components of business development. For one, the famous line, Nokia — Connecting People, took root in his mind. Thomas Gad has also done things for Volvo, Ikea,

Starting December 26, 2010, Utel, a telecommunications provider is going to limit its services to subscribers who haven’t paid their phone bills in full last month, the company’s official statement goes. Organizations and legal entities with unpaid bills will be hooked off as soon as December 27, 2010. Landline phone users with debts will be disconnected a day earlier, on December 26, 2010.

Khanty-Mansiysky Non-State Retirement Fund and Gazprombank Asset Management signed a trust management agreement, the fund reports. Private individuals’ retirement savings (worth over 2 billion RUR altogether) have already been transferred to the management company’s account. This was the fund’s Board that chose the trust manager for the savings. Khanty-Mansiysky Non-State Retirement Fund was set up in 1995 by the regional Public Property Department on behalf of Government of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region –Yugra. The retirement fund in question found itself in the middle of a serious

OAO Uralmechanobr decided to set up a company’s representation in Astana, Kazakhstan. The company’s General Director has already been requested to coordinate the registration process within the respective governmental bodies of Kazakhstan.

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service decided to nullify the license of Moscow’s OOO Home Credit & Finance Bank which allowed the bank to act as an intermediary in stock trading of exchange commodities-based derivative contracts. The decision to nullify the license was taken on the basis of the company’s application and the papers that proved the bank had no unfulfilled professional obligations.

‘The fact that its rating has been confirmed by the agency enhances Sverdlovsk Region’s investor appeal and expands the number of the potential investors and creditors who might be interested in coming to do business here. The rating also opens up a wider access to borrowed funds and other sources of capital. This, in its turn, promotes further economic growth,’ Sverdlovsk Region’s Economics Ministry says regarding the recent change to ‘Positive’ in the region’s rating outlook. Standard & Poor's also confirmed Sverdlovsk Region’s BB long-term credit rating, with Positive, rather than

A number of apparently counterfeit goods were found by Nizhniy Tagil Customs officers in one of the local stores, Ural Customs Administration’s press service reports. The owner of the goods in question was unable to produce any documentary proof of the products being genuine, so their sale is believed to violate the trademark owner’s rights. The sports clothing and footwear bearing Adidas and Nike logos, worth a total of 28,500 RUR, had to be confiscated, with product samples directed to expert examination. All in all, about 1,200 counterfeit items have been confiscated from the stores

Head of Russian Government Vladimir Putin signed an order on converting Rosnano State Corporation into an open joint stock company, the corporation’s press officer reports. The decision was taken to fulfill Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s resolution that all of Russia’s state-run corporations should be reorganized.

The decision to set up Titanium Valley in Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region, is key to the region’s development for decades to come, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin says. ‘This special economic zone will offer businesspeople tax relief schemes and a special customs regime, which means everything will be organized so as to promote the breakthrough development of the enterprises based there. All this will push our innovational projects even further,’ the Governor observes. Alexander Misharin explains that at the moment, there are six companies willing to sign an agreement

Innogarant, an insurance company will provide only a partial reimbursement of Capital Tour’s customers’ expenses; what’s more, this compensation will not be paid any sooner than March 2011, TourBusiness portal reports. According to the insurer’s PR Director Alexander Kremer, 1,020 sets of insurance payments applications had been accepted by the company from the tour operator’s customers by December 17, that is, a month after Capital Tours closed down. Kremer says the Capital Tour’s case is yet unique to the Russian insurance market as it beats all the previous incidents in terms of the number

OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) applied Ford Motor Company’s standards to its zinc-coated rolled products. These standards determine the requirements that the automobile industry products supplied to Ford have to meet. The standards cover such products as hollow-resistant steel sheets and hot-dip galvanized rolled products made of low-alloy steel with high and super-high formability. MMK is now coordinating the first shipments of metal goods that meet Ford Motor Company’s standards. MMK sees the production of automobile body sheets that meet the existing global standards as one

This year’s 1,000,000th ton of hot-rolled products has been produced at OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Mill5000, MMK PR Department reports. The unique production unit, launched at MMK in the summer of 2009, has reached its full capacity this year. The millionth ton of products since the launch of the unit was produced in September; in November, the mill produced 117,900 tons of hot-rolled products, which means 1,048,000 tons of goods were made in January through November 2010. According to MMK Sales Director Nikolay Lyadov, Mill5000 let the company build up on its share of the

The Chinese currency can now be traded at Russian stock exchanges; the exchange rate was set at 4.634 RUR: 1 RNB at the close of business on the first day. The trading process lasted for about one hour and resulted in twenty-nine deals worth 22.78m RUR altogether. The Central Bank’s representatives confess these figures exceeded their boldest hopes and signified that the banks’ customers are growing increasingly interested in China’s currency. ‘We used to use the U.S. dollars for Russian-Chinese contract settlements before, which meant the cost of converting rubles and RNBs into dollars added

‘Operations Taxi Van and Illegal Migrant that Sverdlovsk Region’s law enforcement officers carry out on a regular basis have led to about 40,000 people facing administrative liability this year; these people were both foreign workers and their employers, who had to pay a total of 72 million RUR. 501 foreign workers had to leave Sverdlovsk Region due to violations of the migration laws,’ Deputy Head of Russia’s Federal Migration Service Sverdlovsk Region division Yuri Bezborodov announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The foreign workers were forced to leave due to absence of an ID

The Urals’ citizens whose consumer rights have been infringed by the recent shark attacks in Egypt can count on a 100% reimbursement of their tour: Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) is willing to consult them on how to apply for compensation, the agency reports. A few shark attacks were registered on the beaches of Sharm El Sheikh in late November and early December; some of the victims were actually Russian citizens. A traveler from Germany whose hand had been bitten off by a shark died on December 5. Russia’s chief public health officer

A tender where bidders can compete for a preliminary agreement on the trust management of Yekaterinburg EXPO, an international exhibition center, was announced in Yekaterinburg recently. The company that placed the order for the tender is Ural Exhibition Center. Applications must be submitted by January 17, 2010.