Evraz Group published a very impressive financial report for the year 2006. The company’s revenues went up 27.4% and amounted to $8,292 million, its EBITDA grew 42.7% and reached the point of $2,652 million, and its net profit increased by 50.9% and came to $1,385 million. The company’s steel output last year exceeded the figures for 2005 by 16% and came to 16.1 million tons; the semi-products output went up 29%, that of heavy plate 135%, that of rolled steel for construction purposes 6.3%. Besides, these products are now sold at impressively growing prices. Evraz Group’s financial success

The recent negotiations held by the management of Koltsovo airport and Ural Airlines have finally resulted in an agreement over the summer slots for 2007, reports the carrier’s press officer. Ural Airlines summer slots are going to almost fully coincide with the so-called historic slots for the summer of 2006. Ural Airlines’ press officer says Koltsovo airport has been responsible for the carrier’s chartered flights delay on a number of occasions this year, obviously inconveniencing the passengers greatly. These events outraged both the company’s clients and the local travel agents. Ural

A few days ago, Kirovskiy Court of Yekaterinburg completed the criminal case related to a bridge failure at the intersection of Shevchenko-Vostochnaya-Sovetskaya St. in Yekaterinburg on September 4, 2006. The investigation revealed that the building and assembly jobs had been performed without a building permit and the design documentation hadn’t undergone the obligatory examination by experts. This violation of the law was occasioned by the negligence of Viktor Menshchikov, director of Blagoustroystvo and the customer. The grave designing mistakes and violations of technological provisos (as

Keeping good partnerships with each other is a must for modern carriers, so Ural Airlines can boast round about fifty interline agreements with the major Russian and foreign airlines, including Czech airlines (the Czech Republic), Emirates (United Arab Emirates), Swiss International Air Lines (Switzerland), Air France (France), S7, UTair, and a number of others, the company’s press officer says. In addition, Ural Airlines keeps doing business with Malev Hungarian Airlines since the latter has recently resumed flying its passengers from Yekaterinburg. The two carriers signed their first

‘Industrial production went up 11.2% in January-March 2007 compared with the first quarter of 2006; this is twice better than the Russian average,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel announced at a recent press conference. ‘Investments in the field increased by 21%; this amounts to approximately 26 billion RUR. The housing market grew 40%, with 176,000 square meters of new dwellings introduced within the given period. The regional retail trade turnover rose by 27% and came to 82 billion RUR. The average salary was raised by 31%,’ the Governor said.

Ural Bank of Sberbank of Russia’s 490 subsidiaries have sent over 2.5 billion RUR worth of money orders through BLITZ since the beginning of the year; this amounts to approximately 50,000 operations. BLITZ is both a convenient and advantageous way to transfer money as quickly as possible. Speed is this system’s major strength: it only takes half an hour for the money to be registered within the system, and another half an hour for the receiver to get their cash. It is as if the customers just keep their money in a sort of hyper-wallet that is available to them or their relatives in any spot

‘RTS stock index had been going down from 2,000 points and stopped at 1,915 points; this week, the figure has been fluctuating between 1,955 and 1,990 points. Due to ambiguity of data on the world markets and lack of domestic news, the market is still looking for a direction. RTS and MICEX indices at the close of business came to 1,960.4 and 3,439.8 points respectively on April 26, 2007,’ says SKB-Bank’s trader Alexander Sterkhov. ‘President’s Putin address to the Federal Assembly has been the highlight of the week. The address covers some of the issues related to how the money accumulated

Russian Copper Company has been trying to build up its ore-processing capacity, their press officer says; the growth dynamics can be seen in the fact that the enterprise handled 4 million tons of ore last year, whereas the figures for 2003 only reached the point of 800,000 tons. This year, 5 million tons of ore are expected to be processed due to launching a number of mines in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk Regions.

Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities met to discuss the ways of enhancing the efficiency of cooperation in the field of fighting bribery among law-enforcement agencies of different types. It was reported that 270 corruption-related crimes that jeopardized the state and the civil service had been revealed in January-March 2007, compared to only 629 cases disclosed over the entire year 2006. In addition to this, there were more general inspections aimed at finding offenses in the field of state and municipal service: the region’s prosecutors revealed 172 such offenses in the first

GRAN Bank might merge with Investbank in the near future, GRAN’s press release says. GRAN Bank’s BOD meeting resulted in the decision to suggest that the shareholders vote for a merger with Investbank in the course of the annual general meeting. The AGM attendees will also have to consider issues related to reorganization of the company, details of the merger agreement and so on. The directors themselves have already come up with a preliminary approval of the papers needed for the transaction and of the necessary amendments to Investbank’s charter as well as of the provisions regarding the

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to profit-making NGOs for a term of up to 30 days went down 11.7% (from 31.715 million RUR to 28 million RUR) in January 2006-March 2007.

Ural State University elected its new Rector, the 45-year-old Yekaterinburg Duma deputy and the Dean of the Department of History Dmitriy Bugrov on April 26, 2007. Five people ran for the post altogether: Dmitriy Bugrov, Dean of the Department of Philosophy Alexander Pertzev, Provost Evgeniy Pamyatnikh, Dean of the Department of Physics Alexei Babushkin, and Director of USU Institute for Management and Entrepreneurship Alexei Klyuev. The election procedure lasted for more than six hours, since all the candidates had to present their development projects first. Then the voters (heads of all of

‘Noviy Grad, one of the local builders, will probably not be able to operate on the regional real estate market any longer; this is quite obvious, given the fact that their general contractor (HydroSpetsStroy Ltd.) is now undergoing bankruptcy proceedings with Ms Olga Rushitskaya as their acting trustee in bankruptcy and the company cannot afford to put up any more buildings,’ Director of Dishonest Builders Opposition Fund Konstantin Dushechkin said to UrBC. ‘The question we are most worried about now is what is going to happen to the disadvantaged investors. We hope the authorities withdraw

Yekaterinburg Municipal Duma Budget and Economic Policies Committee analyzed the report on the city’s budget revenues and expenditures in 2006. Financing of social projects and use of money obtained through letting municipal property were the items that received the most attention. The budget revenues reached the point of 15 billion RUR last year, which exceeds the initial target figures by 8.8%. Donations from the regional and federal budgets amounted to 4 billion RUR. Taxpaying businesses still owe the city 1 billion RUR. The budget expenditures amounted to 13.4 billion RUR, which falls

Chelyabinsk customs officers filed 3 administrative suits against trademark violators; the first case involves a Kazakh citizen who was trying to smuggle 15,000 undeclared lighters bearing Cricket trademark in his own car. The automobile was stopped by the officers in the village of Letyagino. Then, Chelyabinsk customs received a complaint from the owner of Stolichnaya trademark regarding violation of his trademark by a Russian citizen. The offender in question was detained in the act of relocating 720 bottles of Stolichnaya without any sales or trademark use permits. Finally, a citizen of

According to the report published on Severnaya Kazna’s official website on April 26, 2007, the bank keeps redistributing its shares among the stockholders. There are 40 of them at the moment, with two shareholders missing from the list as of yet: Russian Tax Association headed by Igor Teushchakov (the company’s share in Severnaya Kazna’s capital used to come to 6.447%, was later reduced to 3.438% and now dropped to.105%; Mr. Teushchakov’s share, however, amounts to 1.52%) and Econometrics headed by Alexander Frolov since mid-March (the company’s share amounts to .951%). All in all, the number

Sverdlovsk Region House of Representatives passed a bill on changes in the legislation on land management within the region after it had been adopted by Sverdlovsk Region Duma. The edited legislation aims to create a new system of managing unlocated land allotments that could ensure that Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for State Property Management has more control over decision-making in terms of offering up patches based in Yekaterinburg.

‘There are virtually no places available for sellers in the local malls: out of 16 trade centers we’ve got, 14 malls are totally filled up, and there is a long waiting list of those wishing to get a place into the bargain. As for the remaining two malls, they can offer round about 500 square meters and their management companies are on the lookout for a tenant who could make the place more popular, so they aren’t willing to let the area to just about anyone,’ Deputy Chairperson of Yekaterinburg Commodities Market Committee Natalia Firstova said to UrBC. ‘On average, there are 200 to 300

‘The introduction of any strict regulations over how grocery retailers must do business with the regional producers is totally unjustified,’ says Nadezhda Buriko, the spokesperson for Kupets supermarket chain. ‘If customers don’t like their produce, demanding that we sell a certain amount of regionally made foods disadvantages the store, the consumer, and the supplier at the same time. The market tends to get a good deal of self-regulation, and, if there is no demand for such items, you can make the stores sell them, but you can’t make the shoppers buy them. On the other hand, some of the

Russian Copper Company is putting up a mine at Vesenne-Aralchinskoye deposit, reports their press officer; the mine is expected to reach the capacity of .5 million tons of copper-zinc ore a year. The project requires $50 million worth of investments and will be launched in 2009. Besides, Russian Copper Company is going to expand a processing shop at 50-letiya Oktyabrya deposit in order to raise its annual output to 5 million tons of ore, 60,000 tons of copper, and 50,000 tons of zinc. The newly renovated shop will be launched at the beginning of 2008. It will be processing ore from Priorskoye