United Company RUSAL’s aluminum output went up by 3.8% (from 1,962,637 tons to 2,037,236 tons) in January-June 2007, whereas the high-value-added production rose by 14%. This was brought about by the ongoing expansion, equipment upgrades, and improving on the aluminum plants’ technical and economic characteristics. The share of high-value-added production came to 52% of all the aluminum produced by United Company RUSAL, their press officer reports. Since the beginning of the year, the enterprise has mainly focused on developing new types of products for the car industry by launching special

Ural Turbine Plant (part of RENOVA Group) has successfully undergone an inspection for compliance of its production with Encertico power industry certification standards, the plant’s press officer reports. ‘The certifying procedure is voluntary, yet it is one of the major requirements RAO UES of Russia (our major customer) imposes on us. Besides, having a certificate can really help if you compete for a tender both at home and in the CIS,’ Ural Turbine Plant’s General Director Vladimir Ermolaev says. Encertico was designed specifically for power engineering industry, so the company willing to

Vice Chairman of Sverdlovsk Region Government Vladimir Vlasov held the Tourism Development Committee’s first meeting at Uralochka (one of Yekaterinburg’s largest sports facilities). The meeting was attended by heads of ministries, departments, and municipalities as well as travel agents, recreational facilities’ owners and top executives, some scientists, and practicing experts, the spokesperson for Governor of Sverdlovsk Region reports. The attendants decided to set up ten work teams that would concentrate on the development of sanatorium-and-spa facilities, environmental traveling,

Ural Airlines might consider acquiring a few super-modern Russian airplanes; the company’s top executives have already held some talks with Grazhdanskiye Samolyoty Sukhogo (Sukhoi Civil Aircraft) regarding the possible purchase of five Superjet 100 planes. ‘We’ve looked into the technical characteristics of the aircraft and gave our future business partners all the data on the potential travel routes so that they could calculate the economic characteristics as well. The planes will probably be supplied in 2009-2011; given that this company will only produce its first planes in 2008, we are

Yekaterinburg Customs (part of Ural Customs Administration) evaluated the results of their performance in the first half of 2007; their freight turnover went up by 17.5%, amounting to 1.8 million tons. The commodity turnover rose by 20% and reached nearly $3.4 billion, Ural Customs Administration’s press officer reports. The number of freight declarations increased by 13% and came to 30,000, with about 98.6% of them processed within a day and 99.9% related to export of goods. Yekaterinburg Customs managed to collect 4.6% more fees and duties than the authorities had planned for them in

The Central Bank of Russia reports volume of profit-making self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in TagilBank valid for 181 days to 1 year went down by 32.9% (from 15.36 million RUR to 10.3 million RUR) in January-June 2007.

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree regarding the state awards to be given to a number of Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant employees. The company’s Chairman Alexander Fedorov and metallurgist Nikolai Samyshkin were awarded with the Medals of Honor for their significant contribution to metallurgical industry development and longstanding great quality performance. The company’s press officer reports Alexander Fedorov has been working at Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant since 1975; he was declared Russia’s Honored Metallurgist and was entitled to membership in the International Union of

'In my opinion, the return of Moldavian wines on the Russian market is definitely going to affect the current players. I believe Moldavian strong drinks will gradually win back their share of the market; their former devotees have switched to alcohol produced in Krasnodar Territory for now, but once Moldavian wines and cognac come back, sales of Russian alcohol might go down,’ Kupets supermarket chain goods manager Gulnas Kamalova reports. 'Moldavian strong drinks will definitely grow more expensive, but we haven’t got any specific figures so far,’ she says.

The spokesperson for Yekaterinburg Electrical Network Company Irina Perenchevich reports another major power outage occurred in Yekaterinburg on July 19, 2007 when a 110-kilovolt power line that supplies electricity to Sortirovochnaya substation (part of Sverdlovsk Region Railways) failed to function; as a result, two substations belonging to Yekaterinburg Electrical Networks Company (namely, Uzlovaya and Dalnyaya ones) experienced a major blackout and were unable to provide any electricity to Sortirovochnaya railway station and part of Yekaterinburg’s Zheleznodorozhniy district. The

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development raised its assets up to 30,294,492,000 RUR, or by 14.2%, in the first half of 2007. Its loan portfolio amounted to 20,927,056,000 RUR on July 1, 2007, which exceeds the figures for January 1, 2007 by 29.6%. The customers’ accounts balance went up by 14.6% compared to the beginning of the year and reached 24,002,073,000 RUR, with the volume of natural persons’ deposits growing by 16%, or up to 16,416,146,000 RUR. The bank’s net profit amounted to 614,172,000 RUR in the first half of 2007, which is 6.3 times better than in January-June 2006, the

Evraz Group produced 4,139,000 tons of steel, 3,188,000 tons of cast iron, 3,828,000 tons of rolled metal, 904,000 tons of semi-products (slabs, blooms, pipe shells, etc.), 597,000 tons of rails, wheels, and binding bands (which is 51.6% better than a year earlier), 569,000 tons of flat-rolled products, and 126,000 tons of tubular goods (LDPs, delivery pipes, weldless pipes, and casing pipes) in April-June 2007, the spokesperson for Evraz Group reports. Evraz Group enterprises in Russia made 3,559,000 tons of steel, 3,059,000 tons of cast iron, 3,130,000 tons of rolled metal (excluding

A BOD meeting at Nizhneserginskiy Hardware Plant resulted in the decision to terminate the powers of the company’s General Director Vladimir Butenko on July 22, 2007. Mr. Butenko is going to be succeeded by Sergey Ivanitsa on July 23, 2007.

Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Kaliningrad to chair a meeting on the implementation of national projects in Russia on July 16, 2007. Prior to this meeting, he attended a press briefing and answered the reporters’ questions, most of which had to do with the National Affordable Housing Project. Some of his answers could be characterized as rather unexpected. Mr. Medvedev said, for instance, that housing certainly had to be made affordable in terms of the incomes Russian citizens actually have, but there could be different affordability criteria. ‘Housing simply can’t grow

'Despite all the good things the National Affordable Housing Project has to offer, it has also got a lot of problems. Firstly, the purchasing capacity of Russian citizens has generally remained quite limited; secondly, the housing prices keep going up. Thirdly, there still exists acute dwelling shortage as our construction industry is rather weak. This business appears to have been nearly destroyed over the last ten to fifteen years, so it needs to be supported and restored,’ Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced at a press briefing in Kaliningrad.

'The ever-increasing housing prices are actually an indicator of development,’ Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who supervises most national projects, announced at a press briefing in Kaliningrad. 'The root of the problem lies in the people’s incomes and in the availability of financial mechanisms that allow most of the modern world to handle housing problems. One needs to be able to get enough money to invest in a place to live, either through a mortgage (as is the case in most countries) or something similar to it,’ Mr. Medvedev said. In the meantime, the enormous,

The cutting ditch of agglomachine 2 was replaced at the agglomeration shop of West-Siberian Metallurgical Industrial Complex (part of Evraz Group). The cutting ditch is used to water wash the furnace charge and agglomerate. Novokuznetskremstroy Ltd., the company’s general contractor, had been working non-stop for eight days to replace an 80-meter section of the pipe with the 426-millimeter diameter. The ditch was actually in dire need of replacement since it was badly worn out by the agglomerate rubbing against it. In fact, a new cutting ditch is needed every eighteen to twenty-four months.

Central Bank of Russia reports the volume of loans given by Ural Interregional Bank to natural persons for 181 days to 1 year went down by 19.8% (from 16.184 million RUR to 12.979 million) in January-June 2007.

‘The number of people applying for an international passport soared this year,’ Irina Pestryakova of Yekaterinburg passport and visa office said to UrBC. ‘We are simply unable to process all the applications in one month’s time (the legally defined wait time), so people have to wait for two to three weeks longer to get their passports,’ she noted. In the meantime, some local travel agents report one sometimes has to wait for as long as three months before one’s passport is actually delivered.

‘Bank24.ru and AIG, the insurance company, have introduced obligatory insurance for holders of Visa Classic, Visa Classic Mini, and Visa Classic Gold. A cardholder is now protected from risks connected with losing a card or having it stolen as well as being robbed next to an ATM. The insurance applies to Visa Classic and Visa Classic Mini cards that were issued after July 16, 2007. and to all Visa Gold cards, irrespective of their date of issuance. The insurance is free for Bank24.ru’s customers, who can use either of the two insurance schemes, the Standard one and the Gold one. The former is

Nizhniy Tagil Customs’ foreign trade turnover amounted to $1.7 billion in the first half of 2007, which exceeds the figures for January-June 2006 by 35.1%. $1.5 billion worth of goods, or 84.1% of all the goods exported, was sent to the countries of the far abroad, and $274.8 million worth of goods, or 15.9%, was exported to the CIS. The share of imported goods reached 10.6% ($183.6 million) in the total turnover volume, with the share of export coming to 89.4% ($1.5 billion), Ural Customs Administration reports. $274.8 million worth of goods was sent to or imported from the CIS, which