The State Land Control Department in Sverdlovsk Region (part of Rosnedvizhimost) and Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District summed up the results of inspections related to land allotments in January-March 2007. The Department conducted 1,966 inspections aimed at checking the compliance with the existing legislations; 772 offenses were identified within the area of 592.9 hectares; this amounts to 39% of all the inspections conducted. The Department imposed 1,772 RUR worth of fines on the offenders, with 572 perpetrators to be brought to account.

Federal Antimonopoly Service committee met on April 23, 2007 to declare Uralkaliy and Sylvinite guilty of a breach of competition protection law; the companies in question used their dominant position on the market to set sky-high potassium chloride prices. The committee now intends to draw up a report and a provision to the companies within the legally defined period of time.

A conference devoted to scrap metal recycling at ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgical enterprises was held in Sverdlovsk Region. According to acting Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Industry, Power Engineering, and Science Nikolai Tikhonov, the Ural plants have been developing quite rapidly and therefore need more and more raw materials, including scrap metal, whereas things don’t look so good in terms of collecting and recycling. Mr. Tikhonov believes that law-enforcement agencies should try harder to find the metal stealers and prevent such crimes from happening: at the moment, only one in

‘If a company owns five or more retail grocery stores, it is considered to be a chain; of all Yekaterinburg’s grocery shops, 169 supermarkets belong to federal chains and 257 stores and catering units belong to regional chains (there are 26 of them operating in the city), besides, there are nine local retail chains in Yekaterinburg,’ Chairperson of Yekaterinburg Commodities Market Committee Elena Chernysheva announced at a press conference on April 23, 2007. According to Ms Chernysheva, these chains are mainly made up of hypermarkets, supermarkets, and shops-next-door, with the latter

The Russian Federation Ministry of Regional Development drew up a report on the country’s socio-economic development in 2006, to be presented to the Russian Federation Government to check the executive branch’s compliance with the top strategic tasks (namely, improvements in the people’s living standards, rapid economic growth, and working on the country’s developmental potential). According to this report, Chelyabinsk Region was Russia’s No.5 in terms of population incomes; the region citizens’ incomes increased by 47.4% compared to 2005. What is more, these incomes grew faster than the

Head of Sverdlovsk Region Governor Administration Alexander Levin met a group of diplomats from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam headed by the Vietnamese charge d'affaires ad interim Nguyen Ngoc Binh. The group arrived in Yekaterinburg because of the upcoming introduction of a Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg. Mr. Binh said he saw increasing bilateral turnover of commodities and more effective cooperation as two main strategic challenges; he assured Mr. Levin the consulate would be set up within the next two months.

RusRating changed URSA Bank’s credit rating from BB to BB+. According to the agency’s analyst Larisa Makarenko, this upgrade was brought about by the bank completing the merger of Uralvneshtorgbank and SibAcademBank, its substantial business growth and impressive-looking accounting reports, and the increased share of retail services market. URSA Bank’s favorable rating is also supported by its leading position in the area, transparent ownership scheme, internationally recognized stockholders, effective corporate management, and general financial success. There are, however, some factors that

‘The arrival of Lada Priora on the car market is not going to affect the sales of foreign automobiles. The new car costs approximately the same as KIA Picanto (that is, 295,400 RUR), but the two automobiles are hardly comparable since they come in absolutely different dimensions and, most importantly, the quality of car assembly is not the same,’ Sales Manager of World Cars Motor Show Dmitriy Styazhkin said to UrBC. ‘VAZ-2110 once failed to compete with foreign automobiles as well, so I wouldn’t think a drop in foreign car sales due to Lada Priora was very likely,’ he noted.

The summer tourist season began with a flight delay for travelers wishing to go from Yekaterinburg to Antalya. Koltsovo airport has already put off Turkey-bound flights twice within the last ten days: it refused to give the carrier its slots on April 14, 2007 and claimed it couldn’t service so many passengers at the time on April 21, 2007. Before long, Ural Airlines (the disadvantaged carrier and the region’s leading airline) sent some letters to Rosaviation and Rostourism suggesting that airports be made accountable for chartered flights delay. Immediately Rosaviation ordered Koltsovo

President of Evraz-Holding Ltd. Alexander Frolov and Senior Vice President Pavel Tatyanin are going to coordinate an online conference on the company’s performance in 2006. The event will take place in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, and Novosibirsk at the same time; all the reporters will have a chance to pose their questions and get an immediate response from the company’s executives. The online broadcast in Yekaterinburg has been scheduled for April 27, 2007 (round about 4 PM); the final place and time are to be announced.

Housing prices in Yekaterinburg’s second and third most expensive residential areas have gone down over the last month, says Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The average price of a square meter of dwelling decreased by .22% (from 62,706 RUR on March 23, 2007 to 62,567 RUR on April 23, 2007) in districts like Siniye Kamni, Uralmash, Elmash, Vokzalniy, Novaya Sortirovka, and Uktus (the north and the south-east of the city) and by .11% (from 58,509 RUR on March 20, 2007 to 58.443 RUR on April 23, 2007) in districts like Apparatniy, Staraya Sortirovka, Khimmash, Sovkhoz, and Lechebniy in the south

Kirovskiy Federal Court of Yekaterinburg considered the appeal of Alexander Parshakov, a shop assistant of Old Soldier chain store who was prosecuted for selling uniform and equipment bearing Nazi insignia on April 20, 2007. The court fully agreed with the decision made by the Justice of the Peace (the latter found Mr. Parshakov guilty of administrative offenses and imposed a fine on the offender), so the appeal was rejected and the ruling of the Justice of the Peace came into force.

A new environmentally friendly plant was set up on the premises of Karabashmed (part of Russian Copper Company) in 2006, reports the company’s press officer. The plant employs the most advanced equipment made by the best producers, like, for example, one Ausmelt furnace made in Austria; the furnace produces blister copper from ore concentrate and slag. The new facility has already increased the company’s production output by 50,000 tons of blister copper a year; the figure now comes to 90,000 tons. The project took seven years (1999-2006) and $130 million to be completed. This year,

Sverdlovsk Region’s industrial production index went up 18.6% in March 2007 against a year earlier, regional statisticians report. The region produced 29.9% less vegetable oil and animal fats, the number of trucks went down 29.5%, medical equipment production dropped by 10.8%, that of electric equipment by 10.2%. Among the greatest growth areas were production of machines and equipment (53.7%), cosmetics (34.4%), plastic items (34.3%), furniture (29.6%), radio and television equipment (25.5%), soft drinks (19.8%), metal goods (18.7%), dairy foods (18.5%), metallurgical commodities (12.3%),

Yekaterinburg is going to host the Ural Federal District Construction 2007 exhibition on April 24-26, 2007, the World Trade Center reports. The agenda of the exhibition covers a number of seminars and conferences devoted to the regional construction problems, the issues of real estate market development, and technicalities of dealing in low-rise buildings. The exhibits will largely comprise building materials, finishing agents, sanitary engineering, and software meant for design and development.

The court of Verkhnyaya Pyshma returned the verdict of guilty upon a sole trader Alexander Devyatkin who had been accused of violating copyright law, says the spokesperson for the public prosecution authorities of Sverdlovsk Region. The preliminary inquiry revealed that Mr. Devyatkin had been illegitimately using pirated Microsoft software in his computer club Zander from May 2005 to September 2006. The club computers had 40 illegal copies of Microsoft Office 2003 Pro and 40 copies of Microsoft Windows XP Pro installed on them, which means Mr. Devyatkin did 680,653 RUR worth of damage to

MICEX stock exchange was reported to stop operating within a few minutes of business on April 20, 2007. ‘Their official report said trading would resume at 12.40 AM (Moscow time) and stop at the usual COB time; the deadline for applications would be extended to 2 PM (Moscow time),’ says Alexander Sterkhov of SKB-Bank. ‘Russian Trading System index went up a little bit after the halt at MICEX, so we expect the business to resume with a slight gap up,’ he notes. ‘Besides, there was a technical breakdown a few minutes before COB on April 19, 2007 as well.’ This has been the second time for

Sverdlovsk Region Duma Committee for Industrial, Agricultural, and Environmental Policies suggested that the regional Duma should support the address of Volgograd Region Duma to Head of Government Mikhail Fradkov and State Duma Chairman Boris Gryzlov regarding the need to do something about the Russian meat market. According to Deputy Evgeniya Talashkina, Volgograd deputies think setting more lenient limits on meat import to Russia would be a good idea. The Committee agreed that it was crucial that the meat import/home produce ratio was well regulated; otherwise, things would only get worse.

‘Yekaterinburg may not be quite prepared to face the new office estate classification,’ Andrei Zhamkin of Jones Lang LaSalle announced at a conference devoted to investing in, construction of, and running office estate. ‘The classification that was developed last year by the market’s major players lacks the notion of type C offices and only takes into account those classed as A, B+, and B, whereas there are numerous type C offices in Yekaterinburg. These are offices situated in non-specialized buildings or old Soviet edifices that used to be occupied by bureaucratic institutions,’ Mr. Zhamkin

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel received a letter from Nikolai Patrushev, Director of Federal Security Service of Russia, saying that the service was getting ready for the 10th meeting of Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS) (part of Shanghai Cooperation Organization) in Yekaterinburg on September 27-29, 2007, reports the Governor’s press officer. This is going to be the first time for the meeting to be held in Russia; the country was chosen because of Russian Federation’s RATS chairmanship in 2007.