‘Some problems of financial nature popped up regarding the reconstruction of the airport’s new terminal. We are experiencing some difficulties with the airport control tower. It just cannot be completed by December as we had planned,’ Koltsovo Airport’s General Director Kirill Shubin said in the course of a meeting chaired by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel. ‘You have one and a half months, provided you get only one shift of workers. And you have four and a half moths if you get four shifts. So you’ve got six months to complete the tower and it’s shameful to complain about having

Key findings of The Economist Intelligence Unit research commissioned by UC RUSAL and supported by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the representative office of UNDP in the Russian Federation Moscow, 26 November 2008 – The first global study into Russian Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has shown that as Russian business goes global, sustainability has been established as a key priority of their strategic development. The international research project, From Russia with Love: A national chapter on the global CSR agenda, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), has indicated that 90%

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov reports the enterprise has a lot of competitive advantages that can keep it going and help it defy the crisis. Rashnikov says that, firstly, MMK has been able to have most of its funds and metallurgical facilities fundamentally upgraded over the last few years. Then, the company is now successfully employing the newest metallurgical technologies and the most advanced machinery. MMK was also able to cut down on the prime cost of its produce through reducing the raw stuff and material spending. ‘What is more, we all know

Moscow, 25 November 2008 – Interros Holding Company and UC RUSAL have reached a cooperation agreement in relation to MMC Norilsk Nickel in order to restore the value of the company and provide for its dynamic growth. According to the agreement, the parties plan to coordinate their positions on the composition of the new Board of Directors that will be elected at the extraordinary general meeting of Norilsk Nickel shareholders on 26 December. This will ensure balanced representation of the interests of all shareholder groups. The parties consider optimal a variant when there will be four

Quorus AKS signed an agreement with SKB-Bank regarding the provision of greater support to the bank’s IT network infrastructure, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘The bank’s dynamic development and the ongoing launches of new products and services as well as the customer database growth and the introduction of new subsidiaries throughout Russia all mean we have to build up on our IT capacities. Ensuring our customers have a reliable 24/7 access to the bank’s IT resources is the main idea behind a lot of our services. This is why our corporate data transfer network is the key component of the

This November, the cyclone furnace of UC RUSAL’s Ural smelter has reached the best productivity results within 3.5 years of operation, that is, 600 tons of alumina a day, with 97 to 98 kilos of standard fuel burnt per ton of alumina. This means the furnace is now operating at the level comparable with that of the world’s best equipment. What is more, the cyclone furnace has proved 1.5 times more efficient in terms of output and 40% more efficient in terms of fuel savings than rotor furnaces. ‘The need for innovation and our search for highly efficient solutions are something we have to do to

Bank VTB 24’s Board of Directors decided to convert a number of its subsidiaries in the Russian provinces into simple operational offices. For one, these changes will involve the bank’s subsidiaries in Smolensk, Archangelsk, Volgograd, Tolyatti, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Belgorod, Syktyvkar, Rostov on Don, Ufa, Ulyanovks, and Barnaul.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development set up an additional office in Nizhnyaya Tura, Sverdlovsk Region. In this new office, customers can place their savings on a deposit, have their currency exchanged, get the bank cards like Visa Int. or MasterCard Int., and make money orders. The new office can be found at 1 Usoshin St, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘It’s very important nowadays for the bank office to be located near one’s workplace or home. A lot of Nizhnyaya Tura residents have been using our bank for a long time and used to have to travel to another town to get serviced.

SKB-Bank’s new office now welcomes customers in Ryazan. The outlet is located at 7 Griboedov St. The bank’s new subsidiary renders the entire range of banking services to both private individuals and entities. The latter will be serviced from 9 AM to 4 PM on weekdays, while the former will be dealt with from 9 AM to 7 PM on weekdays and from 9 AM to 4 PM on Saturdays. Monday is the day off,’ the spokesperson for the bank reports. SKB-Bank currently runs over 100 offices throughout Russia. ‘Our subsidiary networks spreads from Khabarovsk in the east to Kaliningrad in the west at the length of

The concern dealing in provision of electricity and heat at nuclear power plants has placed its Declaration of intent regarding the proposed investment in the construction of South Ural nuclear power plant’s power-generating units with Chelyabinsk Region Government and Petr Sumin, the Governor. Upon looking into the document whose general power facilities layout plan for 2008-2020 had already been approved by the Russian Federation Government, Petr Sumin decided to approve of the Declaration, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. In addition, the Governor suggested that the concern

Rinat Raev, the Mufti of Chelyabinsk and Kurgan Regions, sent a thank-you letter to Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin in relation to his welcoming Russia’s Supreme Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin. Talgat Tadzhuddin was invited by the Governor to visit Chelyabinsk Region in order to take part in the celebrations dedicated to the 220th anniversary of the Central Spiritual Administration of Russia’s Muslims and the 175th anniversary of the prominent Islamic enlightener Zainulla Rasulev’s birthday. The Mufti’s visit resulted in signing a new, extended Cooperation Agreement between Chelyabinsk

‘Delovoy Kvartal magazine’s issue 663 as of November 24, 2008 carried an interview with Uralfinprombank’s Vice President Mikhail Martynenko. ‘Now is not the best time for taking one’s money out of a bank. The crime rate has been on the increase lately due to the economic difficulties, and keeping one’s savings at home is plainly dangerous, while investing large sums of money in foods or home appliances is pointless since these goods get depreciated very quickly. Buying real estate is no solution to the problem, either: all the analysts claim its price is only going to drop. The question is

The Federal Anntimonopoly Service’s Administration Committe is to resume the hearing of the suit involving Ural Oil Company that had earlier been postponed. The company is charged with violating Article 10 (part 1 paragraph 1) of the competition protection legislation through setting and maintaining monopolistically high jet fuel prices. The hearing of the case was postponed in September 2008.

The customers are still having technical troubles with Bank24.ru’s VISA cards. On November 21, 2008, the bank’s customers received a text message saying that their VISA cards issued by Bank24.ru would only be accepted in Bank24.ru’s ATMs until round about November 24, 2008. The bank admitted the fact to an UrBC reporter at the time. The bank’s call center employee explained the change in the terms of service had to do with some technical troubles like the lack of contact with the VISA network. CreditUralBank, whose processing Bank24.ru happens to use for servicing its VISA cards, also said

URSA Bank’s portfolio of loans offered to small and medium-scale enterprises exceeded 12.1 billion RUR on November 1, 2008. All in all, over 8,000 entrepreneurs have been given a total of over 10.5 billion RUR worth of loans since the beginning of the year. The bank currently offers collateral loans of up to 30 million RUR to both legal entities and sole traders for a period of up to seven years as well as collateral-free loans of up to 600,000 RURto private individuals who run or own a business for a period of up to three years. ‘Loans to SMEs is one of URSA Bank’s top priority development

‘A round table discussion on the problems related to import and storage of radioactive and highly toxic uranium hexafluoride in Novouralsk, Sverdlovsk Region, was held in Yekaterinburg yesterday. The discussion was attended by the representatives of Sverdlovsk Region Railways, the Ministry of Nature, the Ministry of Emergencies, and the head of Ural Electro-chemical plant,’ Co-Chairman of Ecozaschita (the international environmental group) Vladimir Slivyak announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘The head of the plant and the representatives of the other authorities claim the

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ) and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (ChTPZ Group’s largest tube and pipe manufacturers) supplied their consumers with 1.39 million tons of tubular goods in January-October 2008, which falls short of the figures for a year earlier (that is, 1.624 million tons) by 14%. ChTPZ sold 737,500 tons of tubes and pipes in ten months of the year, which falls short of the figures for a year earlier (that is, 888,500 tons) by 17%. These figures include a 28% drop in the amount of large-diameter pipes: this came to 355,900 tons compared with 492,000 tons of LDPs in

Starting November 21, 2008, all of Ural Airlines’ passengers flying to Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh from Yekaterinburg via the airline’s chartered flights won’t have to pay any fuel fees. Those why travel to Egypt from Perm will stop paying any fuel fees on November 27, 2008. At the moment, the fuel fee for passengers whose planes take off in Perm comes to $1, the airline’s press officer reports. The carrier first reduced the fuel fees for Egypt-bound flights on August 10, 2008 when the figure dropped from $63 to $51.

Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov took part in Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev’s informal meeting with heads of Russia’s major enterprises. The meeting was also attended by Vladimir Potanin, Alisher Usmanov, Mikhail Fridman, Viktor Vekselberg, Mikhail Prokhorov, Oleg Deripaska, Alexei Mordashov, Alexei Miller, and Sergey Galitskiy. In the course of the meeting, they spoke about the way the global financial crisis has been affecting the economy’s real sector and how the state and business could cooperate under these trying circumstances. The business

Starting December 15, 2008, Mechel Bank’s new name – Monetniy Dom – is to be officially used in all the documents. The bank’s EGM on July 23, 2008 resulted in the decision to change the bank’s name into Bank Monetniy Dom (an open joint-stock company). Beginning from December 15, 2008, all kinds of documents the bank is to handle must bear its new name. As a matter of fact, the rest of the bank’s details have remained the same, that is, the bank’s C/A number, the tax payer number, the bank identification code, the tax inspectorate registration code (KPP), and the state registration number