According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans offered by Bank24.ru to private for-profit organizations for the period of 91 to 180 days nosedived by 51.85% in August 2009. The loan volume shrank from 34.75 million RUR down to 16.729 million RUR.

‘Sadly, Uralvagonzavod’s current managers have adopted a policy that is totally unsuitable for the existing circumstances. The plant’s former management had an entirely different approach to business development. They invested in product range expansion and improved on the plant’s potential as well as broke into the new markets. What’s more, the former executives set up a design office, a transportation department, a construction equipment department, and so on,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel said at a monthly press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The plant’s new managers’

The consumer electronics and white goods chain placed its insolvency application with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court for the second time on September 28, 2009, the spokesperson for the court reports. According to the case papers, the company first applied for bankruptcy in July 2009 but then asked to stop all the legal procedures in September when the store thought they would be able to pay their creditors in full. The court agreed to do this on September 28, 2009; however, Uralskiy Val re-applied for bankruptcy on the same day.

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is to meet on September 30, 2009 in order to look into the case of Euro-Asian Management Company, Intensivnik’s Premier Hotel and City Hotel, Yekaterinburg Tsentralniy Hotel, Grand Avenue Hotel, and Iset Hotel. These hotels are suspected of violating article 11 (part 1, paragraph 1) of the Federal Competition Protection Act through colluding on their pricing policies on June 1-30, 2009. This time period covered the days of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRIC summits in Yekaterinburg. The companies’ alleged colluding

Barclays Bank announced recently that they were planning to open a representation in Yekaterinburg after the decision to this extent was taken in the course of an extraordinary general meeting. The representation will probably welcome its first customers on October 15, 2009 and is to be located at 10 Khokhryakov St. As a matter of fact, the business center situated there already hosts Unicreditbank. According to Forbes’s Russian edition, Barclays Group had $11.8bn worth of losses in 2008.

Rostourism issued an order on September 21, 2009 that excluded Slavyanka-Tur Travel Company from the United Federal Register of tour operators. This Sverdlovsk Region-based company failed to produce any evidence of having the necessary financial security for the new operating period, the spokesperson for Rostourism says.

Local environmental group activists are going to hold a press conference in Yekaterinburg on September 30, 2009. They intend to voice their protests against the policies of Reftinskaya state district power plant’s (Enel OGK-5) management. First, twenty concerned dwellers of Sverdlovsk Region-based Altynai, Sukhoi Log, and Reftinskiy settlements carried out a picket in the center of Yekaterinburg on September 25, 2009. This was done to protest against the illegitimate actions of Reftinskaya. Environmentalists report the plant’s prospective switch to dry ash handling production is bad for the

Pnevmostroymashina is now on the list of companies whose debt to the Russian Federation budget has exceeded 1 million RUR. The list was has been prepared by Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Tax Service; it comprises 187 legal entities altogether.

Evroset Yekaterinburg is now on the list of companies whose debt to the Russian Federation budget has exceeded 1 million RUR. The list was has been prepared by Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Tax Service; it comprises 187 legal entities altogether.

Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko recently chaired its recession-fighting committee’s meeting in Yekaterinburg. In his opening speech, the executive mentioned a few local enterprises whose performance looked particularly worrying to both the regional government and the public prosecution authorities. Tavdinskiy machine-building plant, Egorshinskiy radio plant, Lobvinskiy biochemical plant, Pnevmostroymashina, AMUR car factory, and VSMPO-Avisma were some of these ‘troublemakers’. Nikolai Vinnichenko said these

The dwellers of Sverdlovsk Region-based Altynai, Sukhoi Log, and Reftinskiy settlements carried out a picket in the center of Yekaterinburg on September 25, 2009. This was done to protest against the illegitimate actions of Reftinskaya state district power plant (Enel OGK-5). Ten people took part in the event altogether. The picket coordinators report they are outraged by the enormous environmental degradation caused by the plant’s performance. They aim to make sure the results of the public hearings (which, in their turn, were carried out with numerous violations) are declared invalid. ‘We

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin decided to allocate 121 million RUR to complete the construction of some social infrastructure facilities. The spokesperson for the Governor reports 50 million RUR will be directed to an apartment block in the north-west of Chelyabinsk. The block’s hundred apartments are meant for the local actors and performers. The construction process is to be supervised by South Ural Housing Construction and Mortgage Agency. The new homes will have become available by July 2010. Then, two schools in the villages of Kusa and Zlokazovo will receive 25 million RUR

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin decided to allocate 121 million RUR to complete the construction of some social infrastructure facilities. The spokesperson for the Governor reports 50 million RUR will be directed to an apartment block in the north-west of Chelyabinsk. The block’s hundred apartments are meant for the local actors and performers. The construction process is to be supervised by South Ural Housing Construction and Mortgage Agency. The new homes will have become available by July 2010. Then, two schools in the villages of Kusa and Zlokazovo will receive 25 million RUR

TGK-9, the power supplier, no longer holds any share in Artemovskaya power station. Prior to this, the supplier used to have a 110% shareholding in Artemovskaya.

Uralskiy Val, the consumer electronics and white goods chain store, announced it might be able to pay off its debts in full despite the recently initiated bankruptcy proceedings. The company placed its insolvency application with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court last summer. The chain had 193.29 million RUR worth of debts at the time and operated nineteen stores, of which eleven were located in Yekaterinburg and eight were based in Kurgan, Miass, Kachkanar, Pervouralsk, Zlatoust, Snezhinsk, Revda, and Kushva. The court accepted the application on July 20, 2009. In the course of the court’s

The dwellers of Sverdlovsk Region-based Altynai and Reftinskiy settlements plan to carry out a picket in the center of Yekaterinburg on September 25, 2009. The reason for the picketing is the enormous environmental degradation caused by Reftinskaya state district power plant’s performance. By taking this direct action, the villagers are hoping to attract Sverdlovsk Region Governor’s attention. ‘There are a lot of questions we’d like to ask the plant’s management. For one, after the locals had protested against the introduction of the dangerous dry ash handling system, the management organized

‘We still cannot understand why we have been getting such strange assessment of the enterprise and its managers’ activity from Sverdlovsk Region Government. We have to declare that a whole range of claims made at the administration’s latest anti-crisis committee meeting are simply not true,’ reports Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Enterprise. What happened at the meeting (chaired by Governor Eduard Rossel) was that the plant’s management’s actions were criticized bitterly by the government officials. For one, they disapproved of the prospective 6,000 layoffs, of the company’s only

‘Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Enterprise did receive the state order for some defense industry products, but it still hasn’t got any civil produce orders. Russian Railways Public Company, for instance, only placed the order for 6,000 gondola cars in 2009, even though the two companies’ original agreement for 2008-2010 provided for the delivery of 40,500 gondola cars. Then, the enterprise has some orders for cisterns, but these cannot be produced due to lack of a new coating production line. In fact, this line won’t even be commissioned this year. To make matters worse, no road

‘We are going to have our sales policy modified because of the recent market changes,’ Avtoland Holding Management Company’s Marketing and Advertising Director Svetlana Petrovikh said to an UrBC reporter. Avtoland Holding used to be Ford Motor Company’s only official dealer in Yekaterinburg, but the car manufacturer recently selected Okami and Avtosan as its local dealers as well. ‘Ford Motor Company keeps opening tenders for new dealers in Yekaterinburg every year, so two new dealers have been chosen this time. Avtoland feels this is a good thing. We believe in fair competition,’ Petrovikh

Alfa-Bank Group’s performance was a bit worse in the first half of 2009 than before. The group’s total assets, for instance, plunged by 15% (from $27.1bn down to $23bn). The group’s financial report, drawn up in accordance with the IAS, was published a few days ago. According to this report, the decrease in the asset value had to do with the ongoing economic recession that has been affecting the bank’s lending portfolio and the borrowers’ paying capacity. The group’s total lending portfolio had shrunk by 20.2% down to $15.3bn by June 30, 2009 against December 31, 2008.