The Russian Federation Mining & Metallurgical Trade Union organized a meeting of UC RUSAL’s trade union chairmen and heads of the Mining & Metallurgical Trade Union’s local divisions with RUSAL management. The agenda of the meeting covered issues related to changes in the company’s organization and adjustments to the collective agreements based on this year’s labor contract and on positive trends on the aluminum market as well as wage indexation, organization of children’s summer vacations, and voluntary medical insurance for workers. According to the trade union’s press officer, UC

‘A lot of local industrial sites have been ruined over the last few years; the only things to be seen there now are some desolate workshops and construction sites. These areas need to be registered, inspected, and put to efficient use,’ Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevitch said to the local reporters after a meeting with his deputies and the regional ministers. According to the Governor, they need to get control over the bankruptcies of local enterprises. ‘We have to cooperate very closely with the trustees in bankruptcy’s guild to make sure these trustees’ actions are supervised

Experts claim that, among all the metallurgical enterprises, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) will suffer the smallest losses occasioned by the lack of coal supplies from Raspadskaya mine. Now the media recently quoted Governor of Kemerov Region Aman Tuleyev as saying that it would take at least a year to restore Raspadskaya mine after the two methane explosions on May 9, 2010. According to the experts’ preliminary estimates, the cost of restoring the above-ground infrastructure will come to 700 million RUR, while it will cost another 5 billion RUR to deal with the underground

Experts claim that, among all the metallurgical enterprises, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) will suffer the smallest losses occasioned by the lack of coal supplies from Raspadskaya mine. Now the media recently quoted Governor of Kemerov Region Aman Tuleyev as saying that it would take at least a year to restore Raspadskaya mine after the two methane explosions on May 9, 2010. According to the experts’ preliminary estimates, the cost of restoring the above-ground infrastructure will come to 700 million RUR, while it will cost another 5 billion RUR to deal with the underground

Novgorod’s environmental prosecution authorities and a number of experts from Novgorod Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) looked into the way ZAO Novgorod Metallurgical Plant (the asset of Russian Copper Company) complied with the existing environmental legislation. In the course of inspecting the premises of the plant, the experts detected a number of violations. For one, it was revealed that the enterprise exceeded the maximum permissible atmospheric discharge of carbon monoxide; also, its carbon monoxide emissions were higher than what was prescribed by

Moscow Arbitration Court declared ZAO Tsifrograd, a mobile phones and consumer electronics chain, bankrupt last week, so the company will now have to undergo bankruptcy proceedings, Kommersant reports. ZAO Tsifrograd applied for bankruptcy in August 2009. On October 23, 2009, the arbitration court placed the company on bankruptcy watch and appointed Mikhail Vasilega the debtor’s provisional trustee in bankruptcy. During the court session on May 13, 2010, Mikhail Vasilega was appointed trustee in bankruptcy with full authority. The company now has six creditors, whose claims amount to about

The Russian Federation Federal Financial Market Service took Gazprombank, NRB, Rus-Bank, and J.P. Morgan Bank International off the list of banks that are allowed to deposit private individuals’ retirement savings. The list now comprises fifty-three banks altogether, RBC daily reports.

United Company RUSAL came up with a performance report for the first quarter of 2010. The company’s net profit reached $247m against $638m worth of net loss in the first quarter of 2009. RUSAL’s revenues rose by 31% (up to $2.33m), compared with the year earlier. This was possible due to the growing aluminum prices. The enterprise’s operating profits came to $366m, compared with $247m worth of losses in the first quarter of 2009. According to RUSAL’s report, the company’s aluminum output decreased y 4% in January-March 2010 compared with January-March 2009 and reached 973,000 tons. Their

Yamalo-Nenetskiy Autonomous Region reduced its share in The Industrial Urals-The Polar Urals Corporation from 41.95% to 30.71%. The shares of Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region and of Chelyabinsk Region decreased from 25.54% to 18.78% and from 6.69% to 4%, respectively, the corporation reports. At the same time, Tyumen Region raised its share in the corporation from 25.61% to 45.55%.

OAO Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank was rated Ural Federal District’s 9th largest bank by Interfax’s Center for Economic Analysis recently. According to Interfax-CEA, the bank’s assets increased by 5.8% in the first quarter of 2010 and reached 19.4 billion RUR. This impressive growth made it possible for Gubernskiy Bank to improve its region-wide rating. There are fifty-two Ural Federal District-based banks on Interfax-CEA’s list altogether.

Experts from Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) checked OOO Alcor-C (L’Etoile), a cosmetics chain, for compliance with the consumer rights and sanitary legislation. The check involved inspecting 3,725 items offered for sale, 2,033 of which were called off. This amounted to 4.6% of all the goods inspected. Among the discarded items were 372 cosmetic products past their sell-by date. This was 18% of the total amount. Among the problems detected by the inspectors were the facts that some products offered for sale expired as early as February

‘We have had to reject more visa applications this year than the year before. However, the total number of people who have been refused a visa still comes to only 2% to 2.5% of all the applicants. Most of the refusals have to do with the applicants providing inaccurate information. Nevertheless, there can also be some ‘technical’ reasons, for example, people not submitting a particular document,’ the Consul General of the French Republic in Yekaterinburg Claude Crouail said at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘One example of inaccurate information is some fictional hotel booking.

‘We issued about 16,000 visas last year, which was 30% less than in the year 2008,’ the Czech Republic’s Consul General in Yekaterinburg Miroslav Ramez said at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘However, we can see a positive trend in 2010. The number of Czech visas grew by 8% in February, by 14% in March, and by 12% in April. This means traveling is on the increase, so we expect to issue some 20,000 visas this year,’ he added. ‘We reject 1% to 1.5% of visa applications, mainly for reasons of factual inaccuracy,’ the Consul explained.

OAO Ural Airlines now makes it possible for its customers to check-in online. Using a step-by-step interface, a passenger can choose the most attractive seat, check-in the accompanying passengers and get a boarding card at any suitable time, as the online check-in is available twenty-three hours before the flight and finishes about four hours before take-off. To check in, one should go to the company’s website at www.uralairlines.ru, select Online Check-In on the main page’s menu options, and follow the instructions. Passengers are identified through their e-ticket number or through their

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevitch decided to allocate some budget subsidies to a number of social welfare construction projects in the region, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. First of all, some money will be directed to the buildings that can be finished and commissioned before the end of this year. As far as the city of Chelyabinsk is concerned, the budget will finance the completion of the positron emission tomography center and the acquisition of the medical equipment for it (which will cost 43 million RUR) as well as the completion of children’s clinical hospital

‘Getting our customers to pay is still the company’s major problem for now. Even though their debt has been going down lately, IES Holding’s customers still owe us some 2.5 billion RUR for the heating energy consumed. We are going to use all the legitimate means available to get our money. We really need it this summer in order to prepare for the next heating season,’ Director of OOO Sverdlovsk Heating Supply Company Sergey Yefimov said in the course of a conference dedicated to the success of last winter’s heating season in Yekaterinburg. ‘We managed to get through the season without any

The Republic of Azerbaijan’s Consulate-General is to open in Yekaterinburg in the course of a solemn ceremony on May 13, 2010. The consulate is located at 5 Karl Liebknecht St. The opening ceremony is to be attended by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Russia Polad Byul Byul ogly, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. The Republic of Azerbaijan’s Consul-General in Yekaterinburg Sultan Magomed ogly Gasymov assumed office in September 2009.

The heads of General Motors, Toyota, and Nissan Russia-based factories placed their official petition with the Head of the Russian Federation Customs Service Andrei Yemelyanov in order to explain that their businesses run a risk of assembly line stoppages due to the recent changes in the customs clearance regulations for car parts, says Kommersant. The car manufacturers say in the petition that several customs posts have already been closed down in Saint Petersburg, which made the factories ‘adopt new logistics schemes urgently and incur additional losses related to the car parts delivery.’

UMMC Holding expects to pay 3.7 billion RUR worth of taxes to Sverdlovsk Region’s budget in 2010. The figure might even be greater after all, the company’s General Director Andrei Kositsyn announced when this year’s socioeconomic agreement between UMMS Holding and Sverdlovsk Region Government was signed. ‘Considering the current non-ferrous metal prices, our payments will probably be even greater than declared in the agreement,’ he said. ‘Given the non-ferrous and precious metal prices shaped at London Metal Exchange, our company has gone back to its ante-recession levels. In some respects we

President of Khanty-Mansiyskiy Non-State Retirement Fund Maxim Filatov is about to resign, an informed source told Kommersant. The newspaper reports Mr. Filatov’s resignation has not been officially announced because the fund’s Board has not accepted it yet. In the meantime, Governor of Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region’s Counselor for Economics Sergey Shubin was appointed acting President of the fund. Sergey Shubin refused to provide any comments on this appointment, saying he was too busy, whereas Maxim Filatov did not answer the phone. Kommersant believes Filatov’s resignation has to do