According to a recent real estate market research, there are 18 trade centers in Yekaterinburg at the moment; their total area comes to 553,000 square meters. Two-thirds of malls can be classed as good quality ones. Corteo Fashion Mall, Pokrovskiy Passage, MEGA, Carnival Trade Center, Greenwich, Park House, and Hermes Plaza malls are generally regarded as the most professional shopping centers. The city now has more trade centers than Moscow and Saint Petersburg (224 square meters per 1,000 dwellers against 180 square meters in Moscow and 154 square meters in Saint Petersburg), while the

The Bank of Russia published some data on the amount of money that individual customers deposited in the Russian banks in 2007. The volume of deposits set up by natural persons keeps growing; Russian citizens were reported to have trusted the banks a total of 4.445 trillion RUR by August 1, 2007. «People come to realize that there is simply no point in keeping one’s money at home: it will only be devaluated because of inflation. Apart from that, keeping your savings around the house is outright dangerous. It’s good to know that our bank’s attempts to make the general public more financially

«The final version of the new rules regarding passenger air traffic has only come into force today, so it’s a bit early to speak of any results just now. It goes without saying that we’ll now be operating solely on the basis of these new regulations,’ Ural Airlines» PR Director Alexei Fomin says. According to Mr. Fomin, Ural Airlines has for a long time been using a lot of the rules that the Russian Government is introducing only now. «For one thing, we started restoring people’s lost tickets long time ago, and this is a principle that is virtually the same that has been made the law today.

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that the Central Bank decided on October 19, 2007 to stop managing Joint Stock Commercial Volgo-Donskoy Investment Bank of Volgograd with the help of a provisional administration beginning from October 22, 2007. The administration was initially appointed by the Bank of Russia on August 29, 2007, but it will now have to stop operating due to withdrawal of a license allowing the holder to perform bank transactions.

Yekaterinburg had a great chance to present itself to the global community in the course of Expo Real, an international exhibition that took place in Munich on October 9, 2007. Reports were made by CFO Olips Boris Terentiev, Vice Mayor of Yekaterinburg Viktor Konteev, and Chief Manager of Mega Trade and Entertainment Center in Yekaterinburg. «The purpose of taking part in Expo Real was to promote our city’s commercial estate - one area where most of our projects are implemented», Mr. Terentiev said. In order to impress the attendees, Olips and RENOVA Stroy Group came up with a professional

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Tyumenenergobank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for over 3 years went down by 49.85% (from 2.006 million RUR to 1.006 million RUR) in January-September 2007.

«The average price of one square meter of housing has been more or less stable since March 2007 and it now comes to round about 65,500 RUR», Ural Chamber of Real Estate CEO Rustem Galeev said to UrBC. «Last year, the actual price of a transaction tended to be higher than the supply price, just because there were so many people willing to buy a home. The seller could afford to raise the price and even have an auction of some sort. Right now things have gone the other way around: a customer could easily get a 5% to 10% discount if they like», Mr. Galeev said. «Things will probably stay like

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Ural Innovational Commercial Bank valid for 31 to 90 days went down by 100% (from 600,000 RUR to zero) in January-September 2007.

Avtostrada Corporation Ltd took part in the 7th Russian Roads XXI International Exhibition/Forum on October 15-18 in Astrakhan and was awarded with a special diploma for its enthusiastic participation, the company’s PR Manager Leysan Khairullina said to UrBC. The event was coordinated by Rosavtodor (the Federal Road Agency) and the municipal council of the city of Astrakhan. The exhibition/forum was partly meant as a way of celebrating the Roadman’s Day in Russia. More than one hundred Russian and foreign companies that deal in road construction and road vehicles and equipment-making attended

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that the Central Bank decided on October 19, 2007 to stop managing the International Bank for Cooperation with the help of a provisional administration beginning from October 22, 2007. The administration was initially appointed by the Bank of Russia on August 15, 2007, but it will now have to stop operating due to withdrawal of a license allowing the holder to perform bank transactions.

On October 19, 2007 UralWeb, an information portal, awarded prizes to website owners whose sites were on top of the portal’s rating based on the user popularity. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development received one of the three prizes in the Finances category. The bank’s website provides its customers with information on the products and services of just one company, yet it proved to be just as popular as The Banks of Yekaterinburg and The Banks in Yekaterinburg: New Loan Formula that are universal sources of information on a whole range of banks.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of call loans given by VUZ Bank to natural persons went down by 29.54% (from 14.683 million RUR to 10.345 million RUR) in January-September 2007.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) was rated 16th among Russia’s top 200 largest companies featured in Capitalization-200 ranking published by the Expert magazine, MMK’s press officer reports. The company’s capitalization reached 329.1 billion RUR ($12.831bn) on August 31, 2007. This is sixteenth best result; last year, the company was rated seventeenth. As regards the Expert-400 rating that comprises Russia’s largest companies with the best sales figures, MMK was given the 19th position in 2006. This is one point up from the previous year’s results as well. Then, the company’s

«Russian stock market kept consolidating between 2,140 and 2,180 points (according to RTS). At the close of exchange on October 17, 2007, the RTS index came to 2,136.53 points, which is 1.68% less than a week earlier, the MICEX one reached 3,285.6 points, which is 1.84% less than a week earlier», SKB-Bank’s trader Alexander Sterkhov says. «Russian President Vladimir Putin says that the country’s macroeconomic development since the beginning of the year has been better than initially expected; Russia’s GDP grew by 7.7% compared to January 2007 instead of the expected 6.2%. The President also

The National Association of Non-State Pension Funds awarded Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov with a special decoration; MMK employees were given an honorary certificate as a sign of public recognition of their achievements. The ceremony took place in Moscow in the course of a solemn gathering devoted to the fifteenth anniversary of non-state pension funds in Russia. The event was attended by the State Duma Deputies, members of the Soviet of the Federation, and representatives of different ministries. Magnitogorsk-based non-state pension fund called Social

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation held a series of deposit auctions, including those based on the Reuters Dealing system, MICEX e-trading system and buying bids; the money was deposited on October 19, 2007, the refund of the deposit and the payment of the interest are due November 16, 2007 (for deposits valid for four weeks) or January 18, 2008 (for deposits valid for three months). The auction was held in compliance with the Federal Law 86 on the Central Bank of Russian Federation as well as with the Bank of Russia’s provisions.

Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg became a site for two-day anti-fissile and radioactive material trafficking maneuvers known as the Border-2007. The maneuvers were conducted within the framework of Russian-American Second Line of Defense Program. Some authorities and heads of Russia’s Federal Tax Service, Ural Customs Administration, and Koltsovo airport customs as well as representatives of local divisions of Rospotrebnadzor and Rostechnadzor (the state consumer rights and environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdogs), experts from the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal

Sberbank’s Ural branch Help and Information Center received about 100,000 calls and letters in January-September 2007. Customers wanted to learn about different products and services, they voiced their wishes and requests and made inquiries about the working hours of the bank’s offices. People from the Republic of Bashkortostan, who made more than 39,000 calls, were the most active group of customers, followed by dwellers of Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region, who made nearly 35,000 queries, the bank’s press officer reports. The bank’s online counseling services are also very popular: more

Ural Treasures Bank assessed the results of its performance in nine months of 2007. Their balance sheet total rose by 2.4 billion RUR, or by 30%, and reached 10,693 million RUR on October 1, 2007. The number of legal entities’ current and cash clearing accounts went up by 12%. The amount of money deposited by businesses reached 1,367.6 million RUR on October 1, 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to natural persons for 181 days to 1 year went down by 50.58% (from 6.331 million RUR to 3.129 million RUR) in January-September 2007.