Following Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevitch’s request, the Ministry for Economic Development prepared a list of land allotments that could serve as new industrial sites, the Governor told the reporters after a cabinet meeting. The list is created in order to make sure the regional authorities can always present their available territories to the potential investors. It also contains information on all the infrastructure items like roads, oil and gas pipelines, and power resources. The catalogue-style register is now available in Russian and English and will later be translated

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevitch encouraged the local inventors to cooperate with the region’s technological park and promised to help them get their innovations patented, the Governor’s press officer reports. Meanwhile, a group of Chelyabinsk Region delegates, headed by Minister for Industry and Natural Resources Valeriy Prudskiy, visited Israel last week and therefore had a chance to look into the country’s rich experience in making scientific advances commercially viable. Upon their return, the delegates presented their report to Mikhail Yurevitch, who said Chelyabinsk

OAO SKB-Bank paid the 12th coupon profit and fully retired its first bond issue. SKB-Bank first went through with its 1-billion-ruble bond issue at MICEX on June 21, 2007. The bank then set a record of sorts among the other regional banks, as the first coupon’s interest rate was determined at the record-breaking, lowest-ever level of 9.75% a year. The bank’s bonds were placed on quotation list A1 and included in the Bank of Russia’s Lombard List. To date, SKB-Bank has completely fulfilled all of its obligations concerning its 01 bond issue. In addition, the bank also went through with another

Mikhail Fedorov was re-elected Rector of Ural State University of Economics (USUE) by 112 votes out of 119. The voting by secret ballot took place among the university conference delegates. Six people voted against the candidate, and one voting paper was declared invalid. Fedorov was chosen over the other running candidate, Dean of the Global Economics & Finance Department Nadezhda Surnina. ‘Prior to the voting, Nadezhda Surnina gave a short speech, the basic meaning of which was that Mikhail Fedorov should remain Rector because he has a lot of experience in the field as well as great

Viktor Maslakov was appointed CEO Skolkovo Fund for Area Development. The decision was taken by President of New Technologies Design & Commercialization Center’s Development Fund Viktor Vekselberg, says ZAO Renova-StroyGroup’s press officer. Viktor Maslakov, who has an MBA and a PhD in Economics, is currently employed in the capacity of Renova-StroyGroup Management Company’s BOD Chairman. He used to hold posts in Sverdlovsk Region’s governmental bodies and Yekaterinburg city council and also ran a number of private companies. Besides, Maslakov was a scientific advisor at the Institute of

The net profit of OAO Gazprombank plunged by 81% in the year 2009 compared with the year 2008, that is, from 17.56 billion RUR down to 3.34 billion RUR. The bank explains these losses had to do with increased profit tax payments and greater foreign currency transaction expenses. In the latter case, the expenses partially grew because the bank’s foreign currency assets depreciated due to the growing ruble exchange rate. Finally, the bank made a smaller one-time dividend profit on daughter enterprises investments.

A bankruptcy application has been placed with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court by ZAO AO Avto Land recently, the spokesperson for the court informed UrBC. It has been reported that the company’s liquidation committee made the decision to declare the business insolvent. At the moment, Avtoland deals in sales of Ford, Mazda, Volvo, and Mitsubishi Motors automobiles. The company runs show rooms in Yekaterinburg, Ufa, and Magnitogorsk.

The agreement on manufacturing French trucks in Novouralsk-based AMUR car factory that Sverdlovsk Region signed with Renault Trucks management have led to some unexpected consequences. The region’s Minister for International and Foreign Economic Relations Alexander Kharlov announced today that Renault’s workers, supported by the trade union, started protesting against the French company’s decision. ‘The news on the recent agreement reached France, and the trade unions resented: they cannot understand why Russian enterprises are getting orders when France is struggling with overwhelming

The electronic interline agreement signed by Ural Airlines (U6) and ALITALIA (AZ) now came in full effect. According to Ural Airlines’ press officer, a passenger can now get a single e-ticket for any connecting flights operated by both airlines. The itinerary receipt is printed on Ural Airlines’ official form. The new offer means that the ticket-getting procedure grew much easier for the transit passengers; also, they can now check in their luggage only once. Under the interline agreement, customers can get tickets from Yekaterinburg to scores of European cities, including the Italian ones,

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development had its QUIK-Broker Internet trading system upgraded recently. The innovations made the system’s server and customer interaction performance much better, which will considerably speed up the transfer of data from the server onto the users’ computers. The bank also provided its customers with a new version of QUIK 5.17 used for online transactions. The changes mainly consist in the additional options of customizing a user’s virtual workplace. These additions are expected to make UBRD’s QUIK customers work even more efficient. To sign up for

Lufthansa Airlines cancelled its Yekaterinburg-Frankfurt flight that was supposed to have taken off in Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport at 7:10 AM on June 24, 2010. The carrier’s Yekaterinburg representation did not give the reporters any reason for calling the flight off but did admit the decision had been taken in advance. The airline also claims all the passengers were notified in advance.

Evraz Group might stop the steel production process at its Czech plant Vitkovice Steel on July 1, 2010. Evraz cannot seem to reach an agreement with ArcelorMittal Ostrava on crude iron prices, and crude iron is the primary raw material for steel production, Evraz representative explained to Kommersant. In case the parties fail to come to a compromise before July, the Vitkovice-based plant will stop buying iron and manufacturing steel. At the same time, Vitkovice Steel will keep up with its rolled goods production. Evraz Group bought Evraz Vitkovice Steel in 2005. The plant currently produces

OOO MMK Trade House (a member of MMK Group) signed an agreement with the Italian Danieli for the delivery of a stretching machine for their coating shop. The machine’s primary function is to improve the flatness of tin plate. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is currently Russia’s only manufacturer of this particular product. Tin plate is mainly used for making tin cans; about 300,000 tons of cans appear on the Russian market every year, with over 50% of them supplied by MMK. According to MMK Trade House’s Senior Manager and head of the project on branch and coated metal sales Dmitriy

The Central Yekaterinburg subsidiary of Sverdlovsk Region Hygiene & Epidemiology Center prevented over 22,000 RUR worth of damage that could have been done by OOO Alfa-Travel to a customer, the center’s press department reports. In April 2010, a Yekaterinburg dweller asked the Central Yekaterinburg subsidiary of Sverdlovsk Region Hygiene & Epidemiology Center subsidiary’s experts for legal advice and help in filing a claim against OOO Alfa-Travel. The plaintiff wanted the court to declare that Alfa-Travel’s actions were illegitimate and to make the defendant pay back the 15,908.81 RUR

‘As for the introduction of city management in Russia, I can say one of the UK cities has had such an experience, and it did not end very well. The city’s development slowed down considerably; the city manager was in office for four years, struggling with the political leaders and the Parliament’s conflicts all the while. In the end, when the official resigned and a mayor was elected once again, everything went back to normal and the city was flourishing anew,’ Adrian Campbell, a professor from the UK-based University of Birmingham’s School of Public Policy announced at a recent briefing in

Starting December 15, 2010, OOO Home Credit & Finance Bank’s Ural branch offices will no longer operate. For one, the bank is to close down its Chelyabinsk regional representation, Kurgan regional representation, Magnitogorsk regional representation, Nizhnevartovsk regional representation, Nizhniy Tagil regional representation, Noviy Urengoy regional representation, Nyagan regional representation, Surgut regional representation, Tyumen regional representation, Yekaterinburg regional representation, and Zlatoust regional representation. At the same time, it has been suggested that the

SCAT Airlines launched a new flight from Kazakhstan recently. The first plane from Astana is to land in Yekaterinburg on June 24, 2010. The Astana-Yekaterinburg flight will be operated every Thursday on AN-24 aircraft. Besides, the airline will also introduce its new Kustanai-Yekaterinburg-Kustanai flight on July 16, 2010. This flight will be operated two times a week, every Friday and Monday.

As the company had 513.87 million RUR worth of accumulated loss last year, Vladivostok Avia thought it best not to pay any share dividend for the year 2009. The decision to this extent was taken at the annual general meeting in Artem. The stockholders also agreed to direct 39.11 million RUR worth of net profits to compensating the earlier years’ losses. Finally, it was decided that no bonuses would be paid to the BOD members for their performance.

Plate Mill 5000 of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is now fully provided with orders for its produce, MMK PR Department reports. ‘Our key consumers in this field are Volzhskiy Tube-Rolling Plant, Vyksunskiy Metallurgical Plant, and a number of Russian machine-, ship-, and boiler-building enterprises. They have been buying increasingly more goods from MMK lately, which is especially significant for the company since only 50% of our section goods facilities are being used at the moment: the predicted surge of the Russian building industry never really happened. On the other hand, Mill

The Russian Federation Federal Antimonopoly Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division is to hold a hearing of the recently resumed case No.45 on June 23, 2010. The case involves Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport: the company is accused of violating Article 10 (part 1) of the Competition Protection Act. The offense presumably consisted in that the airport cut back on rendering the airlines the service of storing jet fuel in its facilities with no good economic or technological reason and despite the existing demand for such a service. Also, the airport appears to have no economic or