Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court decided to accept ZAO AO Autoland’s bankruptcy application and to initiate the necessary proceedings, the court’s press officer reports. The debtor’s insolvency application was placed with the court on May 24, 2010. On July 1, 2010, the court left the application to rest and it was suggested that the applicant should eliminate a number of deficiencies before July 23, 2010. On July 21, 2010, the documents that proved the elimination of the said deficiencies was received by the court, so the latter decided to accept and process the application. The bankruptcy

The net loss of Sinarskiy Pipe Plant (part of Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK) rose by 56.9% or up to 493.47 million RUR in the second quarter of 2010. The company reports the increase in losses has to do with the growing raw materials prices, and the drop in production output and sales volumes due to the scheduled machinery overhaul.

The customs posts of Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region, processed a total of 8,200 cargo manifests in the first half of 2010, while the total trade turnover in the area came to 1.9 million tons, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. The foreign trade turnover reached $1.5bn, with 1.3 billion RUR transferred to the federal budget. Over 1,000 electronic cargo manifests have been filled in online since the beginning of the year. In fact, the remote processing technology was launched at Nizhniy Tagil Customs as recently as June 2010.

The Second Freight Company might soon be established in Sverdlovsk Region; the preliminary decision to this extent was made in the course of the talks involving President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, Sverdlovsk Region’s authorities, and the management of Sverdlovsk Region Railways. First Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region Railways Valeriy Fomin informed the reporters on Friday that the address of the new company’s official headquarters should be determined at the Russian Railways BOD meeting that is most likely to take place in August 2010.

OAO Uralneft reports its net profit declined by 20.94%: the figure came to 18.93 million RUR over the current financial period, whereas in the previous financial period, the net profit amounted to 22.89 million RUR, the company says. Uralneft does not specify, however, what exactly the term ‘financial period’ stands for. The enterprise explains the decrease in net profit was brought about by shrinking sales of goods and services.

‘So far, we have sold 30% more tours this year compared with a year earlier, and 10% more tours than in the year 2008. At the same time, the vacations grew, on average, 20% more expensive against the season of 2009,’ Director of Zima-Leto Group Olga Gulyar says. ‘As for the most popular destinations, Turkey has traditionally broken all the possible records. The other popular t holiday destinations are enjoying demand this year as usual, for example, this is true of Egypt. The popularity of tours to Tunis is exceeding our tour operators’ boldest expectations; in fact, no last-minute offers are

OAO Vladivostok Avia keeps sustaining increasingly more losses. The carrier’s net loss actually amounted to 729.099 million RUR over the current financial period, which exceeded the loss sustained in the previous financial period by 117.284 million RUR, or 19.17%, the airline’s official release states. The company does not specify, however, what exactly the term ‘financial period’ stands for. It says the worsened financial performance has to do with a 17% drop in the average passenger fares because of Russia’s major air carriers’ dumping policies on the domestic flights market. What is more,

OOO VIZ-Stal came up with a performance report for the first half of 2010. The company produced 69,300 tons of steel in January-June 2010, which was two times more than the amount manufactured in the first half of 2009. The figure comprises 68,800 tons of grain-oriented steel and 500 tons of dynamo steel. The enterprise reports their grain-oriented steel production output increased against the first half of 2009 due to the gradually recovering global demand for this kind of steel; this demand, however, is still lower than that before the start of the recession.

Bank VTB set a five-billion-ruble loan limit for Sverdlovsk Region. This money can be used to finance the current budget deficit, the temporary cash discrepancies, government liabilities, or loans to legal entities under the region’s state guarantees, the bank’s press officer reports. This loan will be used in accordance with the existing legislative requirements. The money is to be obtained through a public auction among Sverdlovsk Region’s largest banks. At the moment, the region’s government is considering Bank VTB’s offer to take part in an auction that concerns the first transaction

The losses of OAO Ural Railway Machine-Building Plant came to 85.56 million RUR in the second quarter of 2010. In the first quarter of the year, the figure came to 113.75 million RUR. The company explains its losses decreased due to the dropping prime cost of the commodities, products, and services sold.

20.1% of OOO Mount Volchikha Ski Resort’s authorized capital is now offered for sale, the trustee in bankruptcy of OOO Mikhailov Enterprise Daniil Mazurovskiy says. The opening bid has been determined at 14.54 million RUR. OOO Mikhailov Enterprise was declared bankrupt by Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court in September 2009. The insolvency application regarding Mount Volchikha Ski Resort was laid with the court by OAO Bank VTB.

The international rating agency promoted the national scale rating of West-Siberian Commercial Bank (ZapSibComBank) from ruBBB- to ruBBB and raised the bank’s bond rating from ruBBB- to ruBBB as well. Now the bank currently has 1.5 billion RUR worth of bonds with a 12% annual coupon interest rate; the bonds are to be retired in 2011. In addition, Standard & Poor's affirmed the bank’s В-/С long-term and short-term contractor credit rating, with Stable rating outlook. ‘ZapSibComBank’s ratings were increased because the bank showed some more distinct signs of recovering its paying

Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin met with a delegation of Pakistani entrepreneurs in Yekaterinburg. The Plenipotentiary Minister of Pakistan’s Embassy in Russia and Director of the Trade Department Mohammad Ghauri said the visit had to do with the prospective participation of the Pakistani President in a four-party summit in Sochi in August 2010. The Minister declared the Pakistani Government saw cooperating with Russia in terms of trade and economy as its top priority at the moment. Anatoly Gredin told his guests about the Mid-Urals’ business potential and the largest

BOD Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov was elected President of Russian Steel Non-Commercial Partnership. This decision was taken at the partnership’s annual general meeting, MMK reports. Russian Steel Non-Commercial Partnership was set up in 2001 by Russia’s leading metallurgical companies to coordinate their efforts aimed at protecting the Russian metallurgical community’s interests on both the home and foreign markets and to implement some non-profit projects. The members of the Partnership manufacture 65% of Russia’s cast iron, 53% of the country’s

The projected Italian Quarter on the northern shore of Lake Shartash in Yekaterinburg might lose its primary developer. The General Director of Atomstroycomplex Valeriy Ananyev announced he was not going to stay in the project any longer. The Italian Quarter was a project devised within the framework of a cooperation agreement between Yekaterinburg and Genoa. The construction site near Northern Shartash was meant for an ‘Italian village’. The construction started in 2005 but had to be frozen in July 2008. According to the regional government’s latest statements, ?500m were needed to resume

Pipe Metallurgical Company’s (TMK) OOO Truboplast set up an ad hoc committee in order to investigate the causes of a fatal accident on the company’s premises. The accident occurred at the company’s production site rented from ZAO Ural Turbine Plant recently. According to the preliminary data available, a cover fastener broke off while workers were fitting some insulation and waterproof coating onto a polymeric pipe, leaving two people heavily injured. The workers had to be taken to Yekaterinburg Central Municipal Hospital 23; one of them, Sergey Pokromovitch, passed away in the clinic. The

The coordinator of RealAutoGroup car owners cooperative and of OOO RealAutoGroup Financial & Industrial Holding was detained in Krasnodar and will be taken by the police to Chelyabinsk, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s Administration of the Russian Federation General Prosecutor’s Office reports. The law-enforcement agencies operating in various Russian regions have instituted over 160 criminal lawsuits involving the man in question altogether. The charges are based on Article 159 (part 4) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (large-scale fraud); the lawsuits have been filed

Sverdlovsk Region-based metallurgical companies keep building up on their production outputs throughout the year 2010. According to the data provided by the Federal State Statistics Service’s local division, the regional enterprises produced 7.4% more steel (up to 3.53 million tons) and 11.9% more bar iron (up to 2.42 million tons) in the first half of 2010 compared with a year earlier. In addition, the regional rolled steel output rose by 7.4% and reached 2.687 million tons.

‘The investor of Demidov Business Center has no money at the moment, so it is impossible for the time being to be quite sure that the center will be finished in the nearest future,’ Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy said in a recent interview to From Their Own Lips TV program. ‘We know they are now on the look-out for someone who’d buy the tower. In fact, there is not too much work left to do: the main structure has already been completed, so the building would be finished off in eighteen to twenty-four months. In terms of functions, the tower is going to be a business center and an

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is going to resume the investigation of the case involving Limerence shopping center and Extreme Fitness Athletics gym chain. The case No. 39 involves OOO Krona and Limerence’s management, who are charged with violating Article 18 (part 1) of the Advertising Act. The offense allegedly consisted in the companies sending out text messages with ads to mobile phone users who hadn’t previously agreed to this. The complaint was initially placed by a local citizen. The committee which started considering the case decided to put the