David Reinert has recently been appointed the U.S. Consul-General in Yekaterinburg. Mr. Reinert is expected to remain in office for two years, the spokesperson for the U.S. Consulate-General reports. ‘The official will arrive in Yekaterinburg at the beginning of August and will assume office immediately,’ the spokesperson explains. In the meantime, the former U.S. Consul-General in Yekaterinburg Timothy Sandusky’s term of office has expired.

Ruslan Gusayev was appointed Chairman of Bank Monetniy Dom’s Board of Directors recently. This decision was made at the BOD meeting on May 28, 2010. Besides, Gusayev was also elected one of the bank’s BOD Members at the stockholder meeting on the same day. These changes in the composition of the BOD have to do with the fact that the bank now has new owners.

Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy met the U.S. Consul-General in Yekaterinburg Timothy Sandusky on June 2, 2010. Mr. Sandusky is leaving office, the city’s official website states. The U.S. Consulate has issued 102,500 visas since it was first opened in Yekaterinburg. These figures include 2,700 student and scientific exchange visas and over 36,000 professional exchange ones. Remarkably, the U.S. Consulate General was the first-ever foreign diplomatic representation to be set up in Yekaterinburg (formerly known as Sverdlovsk and a no-foreigners-allowed city). Over 5,000 Russian

Sverdlovsk Region’s Prosecutor Yuri Ponomarev demanded that the authorities look into the fatal accident that occurred in Nizhniy Tagil-based Magnetitovaya mine (asset of Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise, Evraz Group) at 12:25 PM on June 3, 2010. According to the preliminary reports, the accident left one worker dead and another one injured. The in-situ inquest will be headed by Deputy Prosecutor of Sverdlovsk Region A.Yu. Chernyshev; the case is also subject to the Prosecutor’s personal supervision. UrBC is going to watch the development of affairs and report on the

A group of mechanical engineers from Bavaria is going to come to Sverdlovsk Region for business negotiations in mid-July, Kai Walliser of Bayern International announced at a meeting with the region’s Minister for International and Foreign Economic Relations Alexander Kharlov. The Ministry’s official website refers to Walliser as saying that Bavaria’s 1,000-plus enterprises supply over ?40,000bn worth of goods on the international market each year. Sverdlovsk Region’s potential being well-known in Bavaria, the German manufacturers thought it a good idea to look for business partners in the

The stockholders of Yekaterinburg-based oil plant thought it best not to pay any share dividend for the year 2009. The decision was taken at the annual general meeting on May 31, 2010. Prior to the meeting, a respective recommendation was given to the shareholders by the plant’s BOD.

The General Director of Kyshtym copper electrolysis plant Nikolai Azarov resigned before the end of his term. The decision to let the executive leave office has already been taken by the plant’s Board of Directors. The organization reports Nikolai Azarov left of his own accord.

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that the bank’s authorized representatives have been appointed to work in twenty-eight Russian banks. The representatives act in accordance with Article 76 of the Federal Act on the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (the Bank of Russia). For one, the Bank of Russia’s representatives are still working in Yekaterinburg-based Bank Severnaya Kazna and Bank24.ru as well as in a number of Russia’s largest banks such as Bank VTB, Alfa-Bank, and others.

The contracts Metro Cash & Carry (Metro Group) has signed with its suppliers actually do not meet the regulations of the Trade Act that came into effect recently, the Russian Federation Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) reports. The FAS came to this conclusion after the chain store had been inspected upon its contractors’ numerous requests and complaints, Kommersant says. The FAS organized the inspection in the beginning of 2010 after receiving a lot of complaints from Metro’s suppliers. The Service looked into the copies of the company’s supply agreements for 2008-2009. It was then

Ural Federal District’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) completed its scheduled inspection of Ural Civil Aviation Plant; the main purpose of inspecting the enterprise that deals in repairs of aero-engines, units, and reducing gear was to check the plant’s compliance with the existing environmental legislation, the spokesperson for Rosprirodnadzor informed UrBC. Twelve environmental offenses were detected in the course of the inspection; the environmental officials issues eleven orders for the enterprise and drew up offense protocols that accuse the plant of

The 28th meeting of the CIS Security Service & Intelligence Agencies Council and the 9th meeting of heads of terrorist-fighting special services and law-enforcement agencies are now taking place in Yekaterinburg. The former event is to be attended by security service representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and the CIS Anti-Terrorist Center. It has been rumored that heads of the Russian Federation Intelligence Service will take part in the meeting as well.

Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities, experts from the regional division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog), and officers of Sverdlovsk Region State Labor Inspectorate started inspecting all of the region’s ore mining enterprises. The inspection has to do with the recent large-scale fatal accidents at Raspadskaya mine in Kemerov Region. First of all, the checks will include an evaluation of the management’s performance in terms of creating safe and healthy working conditions for the miners and other employees. Also, the

There exist no insurmountable organizational obstacles whatsoever that could prevent Ural State Technical University (USTU) and Ural State University (USU) from merging into Ural Federal University. This fact has been distinctly stated by the two colleges’ ad hoc committees whose heads met on USU’s premises recently, the spokesperson for Ural State University reports. ‘To start with, we decided to single out all the problems in all the fields of our activity. The first discussions have made it clear that some disagreements the two committees might have are related to tactics only. However,

The international rating agency raised OAO MDM Bank’s long-term Issuer Default Rating from BB- to BB. The long-term national rating was upped from A(rus) to A+(rus). Besides, Fitch took the bank off its Positive Rating Watch list and gave its long-term IDR Stable rating outlook. All these changes have meant that MDM Bank proved to be capable of coping with a serious stress of the recession without losing on asset quality or relying too heavily on its capital support. Also, the bank is evidently able to absorb its losses at the moment. ‘MDM Bank’s impressive market capitalization was the proof

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service stated that Sverdlovteplosbyt, the subsidiary of TGK-9, the regional heat and power supplier, was guilty of violating Article 10 (part 1, paragraph 5) of the Competition Protection Act, the spokesperson for the Service’s regional division reports. ‘TGK-9 actually avoided signing a power supply contract with Deka, the construction company, as it only agreed to hook the company up through another network (YekaterinburgEnergo Municipal Unitary Enterprise) and insisted on charging Deka for this kind of intermediary hookup,’ the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court rejected OAO AKB Rosbank’s demand that the ruling of Rospotrebnadzor’s Sverdlovsk Region division be declared invalid. Now the regional division of the state consumer rights watchdog stated that Rosbank had to stop violating its customers’ rights when drawing out loan agreements. The order to this extent was issued after the bank had undergone a document check; this inspection, in its turn, was carried out by Rospotrebnadzor’s experts upon a customer’s complaint. The agreement which this customer signed with the bank contained a number of terms that

UrBC found out recently that the chartered flights operated by Yamal Airlines from Yekaterinburg to Bulgaria are in danger of being called off. Apparently, the problem came up because the company’s management neglects the existing rules and only informs Rosaviation of the upcoming flight at the last possible minute. According to an official source, Yamal expects to operate fifteen chartered flights from Yekaterinburg to Burgas and a number of flights to Varna this year. These flights were ordered by Neva ad Capital Tour travel agents. At the moment, hundreds of travelers are uncertain about

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development joined Visa’s promotion campaign dubbed ‘Try It-You’ll Love It!’ this May. Under the terms of this special offer, any customer who uses their Visa-UBRD card to pay for goods and services between May 20, 2010 and December 31, 2010 gets a chance to win 3,000 RUR. One’s chances increase with every new transaction. The first prize-winners will have been determined by mid-summer 2010; the prize-drawing process will be split into four two-month stages, with intermediary prizes. 3,000 prizes will be given out altogether, with money to be transferred

Ural Federal University is currently on the look-out for a bank that could become the university’s partner in terms of cash processing. The university has encouraged the local banks to place their applications with the UFU’s Supervisory Board. The Board will have to come up with recommendations on the banks it sees most suitable for rendering the university cash processing, depositing, and other financial services as well as dealing with the obligatory medical insurance payments.

This year, the American magazine Forbes did a research on the economic situation in Russia’s thirty most populated cities (excluding Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and the cities located in the North Caucasus). The cities were ranked in accordance with their final score that depended on six indicator groups: business climate, the population’s spending power, stability during a recession, social characteristics, infrastructure, and the ease of doing business for the companies’ owners and top managers. Among the Top 10 best business cities were Krasnodar, Khabarovsk, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk,