Rosselkhoznadzor (the Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service) imposes a temporary ban on the import of animal products from fourteen Finnish companies on July 23, 2010. This ban touches upon six plants of Russia’s largest dairy foods supplier Valio, RBC reports. Apart from Valio, the ban also applies to Ingman Ice Cream, a well-known ice cream manufacturer. The limits were imposed because the Russian inspectors found a number of violations at the Finnish enterprises when they examined them. No more details about the problems are given by the Service. The Finnish media say

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevitch presented a report at the governmental committee on regional development’s meeting in Volgograd. The meeting was chaired by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin; the Deputy Prime Ministers Igor Shuvalov, Dmitriy Kozak, Alexei Kudrin, and Sergey Sobyanin were also present, as were the Minister for Regional Development Viktor Basargin and Minister for Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina. The discussion largely dwelt upon the construction industry’s desperate need to cut on the administrative barriers. Mikhail Yurevitch spoke about the state

Ural Airlines is now going to indicate the amount of VAT paid by the customers on every airplane ticket automatically. ‘This means all companies that send their employees on business trips can have the VAT reimbursed if they provide the tax services with the necessary papers, namely, airplane tickets or e-ticket itinerary receipts,’ says Ural Airlines’ Commercial Director Kirill Skuratov. “This service only used to be available in the company’s booking offices when the clerks had to enter the amount of VAT manually,’ he adds. ‘The reimbursement of this tax payment comes to quite a

‘It was decided under the current education reform that several leading universities should be singled out and receive the better part of the state aid. Now the Association of Russia’s Leading Universities was set up to ensure communication among these colleges. The statutory meeting took place early in June,’ Rector of Ural Federal University Viktor Koksharov announced at a press conference held in the course of Saint Petersburg Dialogue Forum in Yekaterinburg. ‘The Association’s first session will be held on October 14-15, 2010. The agenda of the meeting will cover issues related to college

Expert RA, a rating agency, affirmed OAO Bank Monetniy Dom’s credit rating at B++, Acceptable solvency level. The rating was mainly affirmed because the bank hasn’t borrowed a lot of money from large organizations: as of April 1, 2010, only 4.4% of the bank’s gross liabilities was borrowed from ten creditors. Also, the agency’s analysts think favorably of the great share of long-term liabilities the bank has: over 47% of the company’s liabilities, in fact, have to be paid back in more than 180 days. Finally, Monetniy Dom can boast good instant and current liquidity of Н2 = 91.8% and Н3 =

The Central Bank of Russia might cancel the license that allows OAO MezhPromBank to deal in banking activity due to a number of formal reasons. According to RIA Novosti, the bank reconsidered the quality of its lending portfolio on July 13, 2010 and declared almost 100% of its loans were bad ones. This means MezhPromBank has to create additional reserves, which will lead to capital inadequacy and violate the legal requirements set for the Russian banks. In this case, the Bank of Russia will have to cancel the bank’s license automatically. Now MezhPromBank was first unable to pay off its 32

The 6th International Defence Expo is to be held in Nizhniy Tagil State Arms & Military Equipment Exhibition Center of Nizhniy Tagil Metal Testing Institute on July 14, 2010. The idea behind the exhibition is to demonstrate the industrial achievements in new designs and technologies, to help the companies expand their sales markets, and to promote the companies’ produce at home and abroad. This year, over 250 Russian enterprises from twenty-nine Russian regions are expected to take part in the event, and over 200 foreign experts are expected to visit the exhibition. In addition, 250

Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment fund co-owned by Alisher Usmanov, bought ICQ, the instant messages service, from AOL, Interfax reports. DST announced earlier that the two parties agreed on the price of $187.5m. According to Kommersant, the compromise was reached on July 8, 2010. In fact, the U.S. law-enforcement agencies protested against selling ICQ to the Russian fund, since they believe ICQ is one of the main means of communications used by East-European crime groups.

Kaspersky Lab says the company has supplied its Kaspersky Anti-Spam and Kaspersky Security for Mail Server solutions to SKB-Bank. The delivery and installation of the products was performed by Relans Service, Kaspersky Lab’s partner. ‘We have been working together for a while now. Our bank has been using Kaspersky Lab’s products since 2004 and is happy with these products’ great reliability and the information security they provide. This is why we renewed our 1,800 licenses for Kaspersky Security for Mail Server and 1,300 licenses for Kaspersky Anti-Spam once again,’ SKB-Bank’s press officer

445,000 automobiles are currently registered in Yekaterinburg, which is actually 37,000 more than one year ago. 94.4% of these cars belong to private individuals, says Vice Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev’s press secretary Ilona Starodubtseva. Yekaterinburg’s most popular vehicles are Russian cars: their share in the total number of cars driven around the city comes to 38.8%. New foreign automobiles are the second most popular kind: their share comes to 35%. All in all, 54% of all the cars in Yekaterinburg are vehicles under ten years old. It has been calculated that Yekaterinburg has

Moscow Arbitration Court ruled that OOO Technosila, a consumer electronics and white goods chain store, must undergo bankruptcy proceedings and appointed a trustee in bankruptcy for the insolvent company, RIA Novosti reports. Justice Tatiana Potapova appointed Sergey Potapov, the director of one of the stores, for the position. The company’s insolvency case will be heard in court on December 23, 2010. It was declared at the latest session that creditors laid a total of 8.8 billion RUR worth of claims against Technosila, whereas the chain store’s assets were estimated at 7.9 billion RUR.

Metallosnabzheniye I Sbyt’s July issue carried a rating of Russia’s leading ferrous and non-ferrous metals manufacturers and traders in the first half of 2010. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) was rated Russia’s best sheet products manufacturer. Then, MMK-Metiz (MMK’s daughter enterprise) was featured in the rating as one of Russia’s top three metal goods manufacturer; OOO MMK Trading House became the second best metal trader, MMK PR Department reports. The magazine rating is compiled on the basis of the questionnaires filled in by the customers, the market experts’ responses, and

It looks like the solvent demand for housing has gone back to its pre-recession levels now, even though the mortgage market does not seem to follow suit just yet: the existing homes buyers are faced with the lack of affordable mortgage schemes at the moment. This is why SKB-Bank wants to meet the market expectations by launching its own mortgage program on July 12, 2010. ‘Our new program can be seen as an express mortgage of sorts. It’s just as easy to get a mortgage under this scheme as it is to get a regular customer loan. The difference lies in that the future house, apartment, or room

Expert-Ural, an analytical center, came up with its rating of banks located in the Urals and Western Siberia based on these banks’ performance in the first quarter of 2010. Eighty-three banks were featured in the Top list altogether. The banks were evaluated on the basis of the following parameters: asset volume, private individuals’ lending portfolio volume, private individuals’ deposits volume, and the amount of money placed with the bank by legal entities. OOO Koltso Urala Commercial Bank was featured in the Top15 Banks lists on along all these characteristics. For instance, Koltso Urala

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development now gives its customers an opportunity to apply for its most popular loans online. The Open and Minute’s Work loans and the bank’s credit card with a grace period have now grown both advantageous and convenient thanks to the online application option. ‘You can visit the bank’s website at any suitable time and complete the application for one of the three products offered. Since you can take your time and have all the documents at home, you can fill in all the blanks as precisely as possible. What is more, you can always go back to any point to

The international rating agency affirmed UralTransBank’s B- long-term Issuer Default Rating with Stable outlook. The rating affirmation means the agency has taken into account the recent improvements on the market; still, Fitch Ratings feels the bank should be worried about the poor quality of its assets. ‘According to its reports, UralTransBank’s bad debt came to 20.8% of the total lending portfolio at the end of the fist quarter, whereas 21% of the portfolio underwent restructuring. Also, the bank keeps negotiating with the problem borrowers. At the same time, UralTransBank’s shrinking

Toyota’s Russian dealers sold 30,895 automobiles in the first half of 2010, which was 19% less than a year earlier, even though the sales went up by 28% (6,922 cars) in June, Avtostat reports. Camry, a business class sedan made in Saint Petersburg, proved to be the car manufacturer’s best-selling make in January-June 2010. Nevertheless, even Camry’s sales decreased by 16%, with dealers selling 8,052 automobiles in the first half of the year altogether. Corolla was the second best-selling make, with 5,529 cars purchased in January to June 2010, but the sales figures were still 33% lower than a

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development has been running its loans-to-SMEs program for five years now. During these five years, thousands of companies have taken up on the offer, which means the program has contributed significantly to the Urals’ economy as well as that of the other Russian regions where the bank operates. The loans-to-SMEs scheme is currently the major external source of financing for small businesses. This means the companies can borrow money fast, with very few documents to file, and on good terms. The special borrowing party evaluation techniques and standardized

The Ural division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) completed its investigation of the fatal accident at UMMC’s OAO Svyatogor based in Krasnouralsk, Sverdlovsk Region. The ad hoc committee came to the conclusion that the accident had been caused by poor production control over compliance with the industrial safety regulations and unsatisfactory production and technological discipline, the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor says. The top executives of Svyatogor were notified of poor production discipline in the divisions of Severniy ore and zinc

Koltso Urala Commercial Bank’s Retail Department’s analysts report private individuals have been opening more deposits since the summer started, so the bank’s private individuals’ deposits volume is increasing by at least 15 million RUR daily these days. Remarkably, the growth figures only reached 1 to 2 million RUR as recently as January. The bank’s Retail Director Denis Belogurov says the deposit volume growth has been witnessed by the entire banking system. Various banks’ representatives explain that people no longer need a special reason for opening a bank deposit; they normally go on