Ural Airlines’ customers have been offered a chance to buy a ticket for the airline’s weekly Yekaterinburg-Baku-Yekaterinburg flight, the carrier’s press officer reports. The company reports to have done a marketing research that proves this flight offer should come in very handy for business executives from both Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Kurgan Regions and from Azerbaijan, since the two areas’ annual turnover comes to tens of millions of U.S. dollars. Besides, this destination is believed to become popular with travelers and people wishing to visit their Azerbaijan-based relatives: the

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by AGROPROMBANK Credit to profit-making self-regulatory organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 11.6% (from 1,949,182,000 RUR to 1,723,238,000 RUR) in January-June 2007.

Ural Avia raised its share in the bank’s authorized capital by .879%, acquiring some shares from Chairman Andrei Volchik. Prior to this, the company raised its share by 3% at the end of June 2007, whereas Mr. Volchik reduced his share in the bank’s authorized capital from 5.413% to 4.534% on July 26, 2007. Mr. Volchik has numerously reduced or raised the number of his shares before; the last such change took place on June 29, 2007 when his share dropped from 8.413% to 5.413%. On June 14, 2007 Andrei Volchik’s shareholding went up by .73% (from 7.691% to 8.413%). Mr. Volchik also reduced his

‘The Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region has laid a claim against Aviaprad, demanding that this air carrier should provide the agency with the data on the company,’ Deputy Head of Federal Antimonopoly Service in Sverdlovsk Region Marina Pushkareva said to UrBC. ‘We had to take the company to the regional Court of Arbitration since Aviaprad has been fined thrice for refusing to provide the data we needed, but this failed to work,’ she explained. ‘The Service is dissatisfied with the judge’s decision, which is why we are going to have it reviewed. We don’t believe the judge had

METCOMBANK’s Deputy Chairman Alexander Schur reports the company offered its customers fewer mortgages than before in the first half of 2007: the monthly increase in the volume of mortgage loans provided used to come to something between 90 million RUR and 100 million RUR in the second half of 2006 and only came to something between 70 million RUR and 80 million RUR in the first half of 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UralTransBank to state-owned profit-making organizations for 181 days to 1 year went down by 34.9% (from 3.15 million RUR to 2.05 million RUR) in January-June 2007.

‘I’ve looked into the agreements offered by Euroset (a consumer electronics chain store that has recently started selling trips and tours), and I believe they fail to meet the requirements described in the current legislation on tourist trade, since these agreements contain neither the name of the travel agent nor that of the agent’s guarantor. The agency’s filing number is also missing,’ President of Sverdlovsk Region Tourist Information Center Vadim Viner said to UrBC. ‘Apart from that, the agreement doesn’t say anything about the company’s rights and obligations. There is not a single

Five repairmen were exposed to radiation at Mayak Production Association (based in Ozersk, Chelyabinsk Region) on June 22-24, 2007. The accident was reported on July 2, 2007 after the data recorded by both the regular and extra dosimeters that the workers had with them had been decoded. Four people got 2.3 to 2.9 mSv more than the upper radiation limit of 50 mSv, and one person was exposed to a portion of 77.3 mSv, the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor (the state nuclear safety watchdog) reports. The accident was investigated by an ad hoc committee that comprised a representative of Ural

The regional foreign trade turnover (excluding unofficial export and import) came to $4.4 billion (in current prices) in January-May 2007, which exceeds the figures for January-May 2006 by 30.4%, including $3.5 billion worth of exported goods and $865.2 million worth of imported goods, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 30.2% and 30.94%, respectively. The export surplus amounted to $2679.1 million against $2060.5 million in January-May 2007, Ural Customs Administration reports. The share of exported goods reached 80.4%, that of imported goods 19.6% in January-May 2007. Sverdlovsk

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank Ltd. to state-owned profit-making organizations for 181 days to 1 year went down by 16.7% (from 6 million RUR to 5 million RUR) in January-June 2007.

Net profit of Uniastrum Bank Ltd plummeted by 268.04%, or 98,175,000 RUR in April-June 2007, dropping from 36,627,000 RUR in the fist quarter of 2007 to -61,548,000 RUR in the second quarter of the year. This information was published in compliance with the demand that an issuer and/or a joint stock investment fund must promptly reveal any information that could influence its stock price.

‘A portion of Concern Kalina’s shares that used to belong to General Director Timur Goryaev could be interesting for a number of western investors who deal in the same kind of business. At the same time, I am inclined to think that these kinds of companies are primarily interested in acquiring the majority shareholding and not the blocking one, even though some venture capital funds have been buying blocking minority shareholdings for speculation purposes lately,’ Konstantin Selyanin, Director of the Ural branch of Accord Invest Ltd., said to UrBC. Mr. Gorayev reduced his share in Kalina’s

Severnaya Kazna Chairman Andrei Volchik reduced his share in the bank’s authorized capital from 5.413% to 4.534%, selling .879% of his shares. Mr. Volchik has numerously reduced or raised the number of his shares before; the last such change took place on June 29, 2007 when his share dropped from 8.413% to 5.413%, or by 3%. On June 14, 2007 Andrei Volchik’s shareholding went up by .73% (from 7.691% to 8.413%). Mr. Volchik also reduced his share from 7.995% to 7.044%, or by .951%, in May 2007 and from 10.024% to 7.995% on April 25, 2007. This information was published in compliance with the

Concern Kalina’s General Director and BOD member Timur Goryaev sold most of the company’s stock he had, thus reducing his share in Kalina’s authorized capital from 30.0031% to .0328%, or by 29.9703%. This information was published in compliance with the demand that an issuer and/or a joint stock investment fund must promptly reveal any information that could influence its stock price.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin celebrated the Railroader’s Day by presenting the regional population with a new electric train in the course of meeting the new head of South Ural Railways Vladimir Moldaver on July 27, 2007. The spokesperson for the Governor reports this was the second time Mr. Sumin and Mr. Moldaver met. Mr. Moldaver spoke on the daily performance of the railway workers and said that South Ural Railways and Chelyabinsk Region Government enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership. The regional government allocated some money to buy an electric train as early as 2003;

Accumulation of industrial and consumption wastes in Sverdlovsk Region has been one of the region’s major environmental hazards for a while now; at the same time, some programs that could help solve these man-caused problems are being hindered by a number of unresolved issues. Firstly, it is still not clear how to recycle the bulky wastes left over from the metallurgical production (such as red mud and some others), waste supplied by hydrolysis production (such as lignine), heat-and-power engineering, mining industry, and organic waste produced by regional farmers. Secondly, there is an issue

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of natural persons’ deposits in Tagilbank valid for up to 30 days went down by 32% (from 2.254 million RUR to 1.535 million RUR) in January-June 2007

Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial production index in the first half of 2007 exceeded that for January-June 2006 by 8%, regional statisticians report. The volume of goods, jobs, and services related to mining industry in January-June 2007 rose by 1.4 times in current prices compared with a year earlier; that of goods produced by manufacturing industries went up by 1.3 times, that of goods and services related to production and distribution of electricity, gas, and water increased by 1.2 times. The production volume of PVC elastron went up by 69.2%, that of windowpanes by 65.1%, that of linoleum

Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov reports that the agricultural production output only grew by 1.5% in the first half of 2007, which couldn’t be seen as really great. According to Mr. Koksharov, offering loans to farmers could also be faster as well as be done on a larger scale. He also suggested that Sverdlovsk Region Ministry of Agriculture and Food should reconsider its managerial practices. These issues were discussed in the course of a meeting devoted to assessment of the implementation of top priority national projects and demographic policies.

The regional division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) inspected the premises of Russian Chrome 1915, revealing 14 environmental offenses. This resulted in 17 orders describing steps that had to be taken, with strict deadlines. One problem was that the company never had its hazardous waste certificates approved of by Rostechnadzor. Then, it turned out that the used Hg-lamps were not stored safely, and a twenty-liter vessel with the waste oil was simply put into the industrial waste container, Rostechnadzor’s press officer reports. Some of the company’s sites were