A meeting of Rostourism Hotel Certification Committee took place in Moscow on Thursday. The committee members considered the applications of hotels wishing to get into two-, three-, four-, and five-star categories. For one, Tymen-based Eurasia Business Hotel and Yekaterinburg-based Angelo Airport Hotel were given the four-star status and Yekaterinburg-based Green Park Hotel and Sverdlovsk Congress Hotel got 3 stars each.

All the issues related to upgrading Sverdlovsk Region-based Reftinskaya power station (Enel OGK-5) and introducing the new ways of storing and recycling production waste were dealt with at a recent meeting chaired by the deputy of region’s Legislative Assembly’s House of Representatives Nikolai Krupin. The meeting was attended by mayors of Asbest, Berezovskiy, Malyshev, Reftinskiy, and Sukhoi Log, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Energy and Communal Housing Services reports. ‘The power station is currently transferring all the pulp into its second ash disposal area, but

NOMOS-BANK recently confirmed the fact that they co-invested some money in Vladimir Frolov’s new banking project – a settlement bank. According to NOMOS-BANK, the settlement bank will be based on the existing URAN Commercial Bank; the Central Bank of Russia has already agreed to the acquisition of the latter by the investors. NOMOS-BANK is going to buy a majority shareholding in URAN, while Vladimir Frolov is buying a blocking shareholding,’ the bank reports. According to Kommersant, NOMOS-BANK now owns 75% of URAN Commercial Bank. Actually, the bank will probably be renamed, so its services

MMK AtakaşMetalurjiSanayi, TicaretveLimanIsletmeciligi A.S (MMK Atakaş, the asset of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works) signed a long-term financing agreement with a number of crediting organizations recently. The financing is needed to put up an integrated metallurgical works in Turkey and the accompanying infrastructure. The construction began in October 2007 and will probably have been completed by the end of 2010. The project’s estimated capacity comes to 2.3 million tons of flat rolled stock a year; the produce will be delivered onto both the domestic and the export markets.

According to the statistics for January-September 2009, Yekaterinburg is Russia’s third largest foreign cars market, with 25,610 foreign vehicles sold in these nine months. This figure was only beaten by Moscow and Saint Petersburg, AVTOSTAT agency says in its monthly report on the country’s automobile market. All in all, the sales of foreign cars in Yekaterinburg decreased by nearly 60% in January-September 2009 compared to January-September 2008. Chevrolet, whose share of the local foreign cars market came to 13.4%, was Yekaterinburg’s No.1 bestseller, while Toyota’s share dropped from

2,700 flights operated by Russian airlines were delayed by over two hours between July 3, 2009 and November 20, 2009. In 1,184 cases, it was the carrier’s fault, Rosaviation reports. The top five companies whose flights were delayed most often were Siberia, with its 136 delayed flights, Transaero, with its 97 delayed flights, Vladivostok Avia, with its 74 delayed flights, Sky Express, with its 61 delayed flights, and Utair, with its 60 delayed flights. Aeroflot was actually given the seventh position on this list. All in all, Russian carriers were responsible for the delay of 1,500 flights in

The network electricity supplier announced the results of its performance in 2008; the report was compiled in accordance with the International Accounting Standards. According to this report, the company’s revenues came to 41,593.4 million RUR in 2008, which was 9.4% better than in 2007. The expenses amounted to 40,239.8 million RUR last year, which was 13.1% more than in 2007. MRSK Urala made 1,356.2 million RUR in terms of sales profit in 2008. This figure was actually 44.8% lower than the one reached in 2007. The company’s profitability index in this respect was thus registered at 3.3%.

Former BOD Chairman of Bank Severnaya Kazna (now belonging to Alfa-Bank) Vladimir Frolov became the BOD Chairman of URAN Commercial Bank. The news has been announced via the company’s official website. In fact, UrBC maintained as early as September 2009 that Frolov was going to use URAN to start up a new financial project; this claim has therefore been officially proved now. The Board of Directors now comprises seven members, including Andrei V. Frolov. Ural Commercial Bank was set up in February 1992 in Sorochinsk, Orenburg Region. In January 2005, the bank became a member of the obligatory

Russia’s Federal Financial Market Service turned down Yekaterinburg-based Uralfinance Commercial Bank’s application for a dealing operations license on November 25, 2009.

Microsoft looked into the results of its software piracy monitoring program and came up with a comparative report on a number of Russian regions. According to this report, about 70% out of 3,000 retail outlets inspected by the company representatives in fifty-three Russian cities only sell licenses software products, whereas 14% of stores might offer their customers pre-installed counterfeited software, the company’s press service says. As for Ural Federal District, the scale of software piracy was the greatest in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, with 30% to 50% of computer shops openly

Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Financial Market Service coordinated a scheduled inspection of Uralvagonzavodskiy Retirement Fund. Following the inspection, a letter ordering the fund’s management to eliminate the existing violations of the law and to take measures aimed at preventing these violations in the future was sent to the company.

The premises of a Yekaterinburg-based food depot (namely, the land allotment and some office buildings) worth 19 million RUR have recently been arrested by the officers of the court, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Service of Court Officers reports. ‘Our district division is now handling the enforcement proceedings based on a warrant issued by Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court. The warrant states that the debtor must pay 16,317,000 RUR to Express Market Plus. Besides, another warrant issued by this court states that the food depot must pay 20,002,000 RUR to

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is to resume the hearing of the case involving Yekaterinburg subsidiaries of ROSBANK and Standard-Reserve, the insurance company, on November 24, 2009. The two companies might be charged with violating the Federal Competition Protection Act 135 FZ (Article 11, part 1). The final decision should be taken by the next day. The bank and the insurer are suspected of colluding in a manner that could impose disadvantageous contract terms upon their customers. The thing is, the insurer agreed to pay the insurance compensation to the

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is currently handling the case of Gazpromneft-Ural and Lukoil-Permnefteprodukt; the two oil companies have allegedly introduced monopolistically high gasoline prices As far as Lukoil-Permnefteprodukt is concerned, the company is suspected of setting and maintaining sky-high prices for AI-80, AI-92, and AI-95 gasoline and for diesel fuel in Yekaterinburg since November 1, 2008. Gazpromneft-Ural is suspected of doing the same in Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Tagil, Rezh, and Kamensk-Uralskiy.

‘Following some negotiations, two dealing agreements have been signed with Avtosan and Okami,’ Ford Motor Company’s press officer Ekaterina Kulinenko informed UrBC reporters. Ford chose its new Yekaterinburg dealers as early as September 2009; prior to this, Avtoland Holding had been the car manufacturer’s only representative in the city. ‘Avtosan and Okami have been our official dealers since mid-October. We expect both car centers to start rendering their customers a full range of sales and after-sales services by the end of the year,’ Kulinenko noted.

‘I’m not sure the reopening of Palma-Tours’ office in Pushkin St can actually be taken seriously. I think I’ll wait till the unhappy customers have placed their complaints and then see what conclusions can be made,’ President of Sverdlovsk Region Information and Tourism Center Vadim Viner said to UrBC. The notorious tour operator that used to offer its services to dwellers of Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Tyumen Regions and Knanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region had earlier claimed to have gone out of business. The company’s offices closed down about a week ago. However, one of its

Alexander Misharin has by now been adjured and assumed the office of Governor of Sverdlovsk Region. The decision to make him Governor was taken during a joint meeting of the Legislative Assembly’s both chambers in Yekaterinburg on November 23, 2009. In fact, the initial decision to this extent was made during a joint meeting on November 17, 2009 when Misharin was presented to the deputies by Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko. The second meeting was attended by the Russian Federation Transport Minister Igor Levitin (who

The Federal Financial Market Service decided to annul the licenses allowing Pervouralsk-based Universal Commercial Bank to perform brokerage and dealing operations on the securities market. This decision was made after the bank’s banking operation license had been declared invalid by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation’s order OD-684 as of October 28, 2009.

‘The profit resulting from selling Sverdlovsk Region’s 185-million-ruble share in Europe Business Center is expected to make up the lion’s share of the total revenues (that is, 227 million RUR) that came from selling public property to private owners in 2009. I believe the current owner of the business center is the most likely customer for this share,’ says Sverdlovsk Region Public Property Management Minister Alexei Molotkov. ‘The same is true of Uspenskiy Mall. Some of its assets are managed by the regional unitary enterprise that has been allowed by the regional authorities to sell the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg against VIM-AVIA Airline; the plaintiff wants to be paid 1.99 million RUR worth of debts and rent. In the course of the preliminary hearing, the court decided that the handling of the case should be postponed until the parties have tried to reach an out-of-court settlement. The court’s next hearing was scheduled for November 20, 2009.