According to the research conducted by the Federal Statistical Service on the socio-economic development of Russian regions in 2006, the number of the unemployed registered with Sverdlovsk Region placement service went down 10.3% (against December 2005) at the end of December 2006 and amounted to 35,600 people. Sverdlovsk Region has the lowest unemployment rate (less than 1.5%) compared to the other regions of Ural Federal District. 31,800 people are currently on the dole, which is 10.4% less than in 2005.

‘The mortgage lending market tends to be experiencing lowering demand, mainly due to sky-high prices,’ Anna Troyanovskaya, Existing Homes and Mortgage Director of Vostochnoye Real Estate Ltd., said to UrBC. Sverdlovsk Region’s banks provided their clients with 1,161 mortgage loans (which is 3.25 times better than in 2005) worth 1.068 billion RUR (five times better than in 2005) in January-June 2006. Only 52 mortgages were issued last January, whereas as many as 361 (worth nearly 355 million RUR) were issued in June 2006. As regards the period of January to October 2006, the local banks gave

‘The trustee in bankruptcy’s report on HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (general contractor of Noviy Grad, the local developer) will be presented in Sverdlovsk Region Court of Arbitration on March 15, 2007. I expect the court hearing to be quite productive, as there appear to be no problems left by now,’ says Olga Rushitskaya, the company’s trustee in bankruptcy. ‘There used to be some procrastination as the claim of one of the creditors (Pantheon Ltd.) was left unanswered, but the issue has already been dealt with. The thing is, this claim was not laid in compliance with all the legal requirements

West-Siberian Metallurgical Industrial Complex (part of Evraz Group) won in Russia’s Top 100 Enterprises contest in the Environment and Environmental Management category. The company’s Managing Director Rashid Nugumanov was awarded with the honorary decoration of Conservationist of the Year 2006, reports the spokesperson for Evraz Group. Over 400 enterprises based in 50 Russian regions applied for the competition, and 160 of them made it to the final tour; then, the ‘golden hundred’ was selected based on how successful the companies were in their conservational activity: whether they managed

Russian Copper Company and Ausmelt Limited have successfully launched a new copper-smelting plant that is based in Karabash, Chelyabinsk Region, and is going to employ Ausmelt technologies, reports the spokesperson for Russian Copper Company. The plant is expected to process 550,000 tons of copper concentrate a year; its smelting furnace is capable of producing 90,000 tons of blister copper annually. This has become Ausmelt’s first project in Russia, with construction completed and the furnace launched in October 2006. The company’s experts left the site in December 2006, and the plant has

Delovoi Kvartal magazine has recently published a report on the local consulting services market. The management consulting market went up 33% last year, with greatest growth figures in the fields of quality management, logistics, and production management. According to the magazine, Traectoria Rosta Ltd ended up being the ninth on Yekaterinburg’s Top 10 consulting firms list. ‘Medium-scale businesses’ demand for the integrated management systems based on international standards is ever-increasing. The products we offer make it possible to set up a single system that will deal with all the

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel met president of Itera (an oil and gas company) Igor Makarov in Moscow on March 12, 2007. The meeting was devoted to the results and future potential of the regional government’s cooperation with the company. Mr. Makarov said Itera was going to keep up with all the investment projects they had discussed. Itera intends to invest 4.74 billion RUR in putting up a number of buildings and facilities in Sverdlovsk Region in the near future. It was agreed in the course of the meeting that Eduard Rossel would take part in the company’s Board meeting in

Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Novokuznetsk (part of Evraz Group) held the Modern Woman 2007 contest at the beginning of March. There were six employee participants as well as workers of Metallurgical Equipment Repairing Plant (ZRMO Ltd.), EvrazEC Ltd., and Stal-NK Ltd., reports the spokesperson for Evraz Group. The final tour of the contest included three tasks: presenting My Element, a role play about the Woman Mystery, and Cherchez la Femme competition. All the participants won the completion, each in her respective category; Vitalia Pshonkina, Maria Kosykh, and Tatiana Artemieva (all

The campaign aimed at fighting economic crimes that was launched by the Department of Internal Affairs and the public prosecution authorities of Ural Federal District resulted in charging the director of state-owned Electrohimpribor (based in the town of Lesnoy, Sverdlovsk Region) with mercenary crimes and large-scale theft, reports the spokesperson for the public prosecution authorities of Ural Federal District. The accused is believed to have stolen over 1.4 million RUR through signing fictitious agreements about providing non-existent information services on behalf of the company; the

‘We used to use Bank URALSIB’s car loan schemes, but we had to give this up since they have no competitive advantages any longer, while their interest rates exceed the market figures,’ says Sergey Rzhevskiy, the lending expert of Toyota Center auto show. ‘When deciding on a car loan scheme, we are trying to look for a moderate interest rate without hidden additional payments and commissions and for the banks that would treat our clients nicely and only ask for a reasonable amount of documents to be collected,’ Mr. Rzhevskiy says. ‘Bank URALSIB does not demand that the customer provide any

Sverdlovsk Region Government approved of the changes made to the land management legislation regarding regional property. Three major changes have been made so far: firstly, the right of the executive branch to give permission to privatize or use the regional property and the way this is to be done will now be decided upon in a new format (Regulation 317); secondly, the way the representatives of the executive branch are to deal in auctions has been modified as well (Regulation 543); thirdly, the authority over agricultural lands is to be determined differently (Regulation 737). All the

Thirteen carriages loaded with corn ran off the rails at Shalya-Perm section of Sverdlovsk Railways. The company says all train transition has been closed down at this section of the road for the time being, with passenger trains using another branch line. Emergency trains from the nearby stations were sent for in order to fix the problem. No casualties have been reported.

‘Foreign workers are currently leaving the local markets. We are a law-abiding company, so they will have disappeared completely by April 1, 2007. The vacancies are being filled by Russian citizens quite reluctantly, however,’ says PR Director of Taganskiy Ryad (one of Yekaterinburg’s largest markets) Lyudmila Belousova. ‘We also expect the prices to go up beginning from April. Foreigners used to both deliver the goods to Russia and sell them here, but now the Russian intermediaries will take their advantage of the transactions. The range of products is also likely to grow less diverse with

URSA Bank is holding a special Spring-Love-URSA Bank advertising campaign in 23 Russian cities from March 4 to March 18, 2007, reports their press officer. The campaign, estimated to involve at least 80,000 participants, is targeted at informing as many people as possible about the merger of SibAcademBank and Uralvneshtorgbank that resulted in the emergence of URSA Bank last December. The campaign in Novosibirsk, for instance, lasted five days (March 4 to March 8), the press officer says.

‘Noviy Grad (the local developer) illegally pulled down an important historic building (a merchant’s house at 72 Khokhryakov St.) a while ago and put up a multi-storey apartment building on the site. The authorities are now thinking of the best way out and of where this architecturally valuable exhibit should be restored. One obviously cannot use the original site since the developer is still constructing the new building using natural persons’ investments,’ reports Konstantin Bruner of Affordable Housing NGO. Ural State Economic University was given a land allotment near the site by the

Uralmashzavod (part of United Machine Building Works (aka OMZ, formerly United Heavy Machinery)) signed a contract regarding production of two cement mills with MordovCement on February 28, 2007. The contract is the result of a tender held in February 2007; the equipment (whose total weight is expected to come to 200 tons), designed by Uralmashzavod experts, is to be supplied in September or October 2007. The plant delivered similar machines to MordovCement in 2005-2006, and the latter has been using them successfully. The two parties are hoping to keep cooperating as MordovCement is

SverdlovEnergo now has a new General Director: former chief executive of UdmurtEnergo Mikhail Dralin will run the company beginning from March 14, 2007. The company’s former GD Vladimir Calsin will now be employed in the capacity of Deputy CEO for Service Issues of Urals and Volga Interregional Network Company.

‘Autonom has been using car loan offers from the majority of local banks. Despite the fact that these offers are, on the whole, quite similar, each particular purchase requires a certain bank for reasons of best convenience. This is why we sign agreements with these banks and our experts then explain the customers which scheme will best work for them,’ says Natalia Sedova, Lending and Insurance Director of Autonom auto show. ‘The so-called express loans that require very few papers and economy loans (with the interest rate of no more than 13% a year) enjoy the greatest demand, so we are

‘509 complaints regarding insurers of Ural Federal District were placed with the local division of Federal Surveillance Agency in 2006. 82% of all complaints are related to obligatory car insurance and, as a matter of fact, we get the same kinds of complaints every year. To start with, most insurance companies fail to pay the money on time (that is, within fifteen days). They also tend to pay less and question the damage assessment. One way to handle this problem is to have one’s car serviced at a particular garage that has a special agreement with the insurer rather than take money,’ says

‘Noviy Grad, Evropeyskoye, and Hephaestus Works Ltd are the companies that give us the better part of our hard time,’ reports Evgeniy Melnichenko, Director of Federal Licensing Center in Ural Federal District. According to Mr. Melnichenko, among their main offences are lack of managers with higher or vocational education (10%), shortage of equipment, machines, and facilities (20%), lack of regular professional training among engineers and therefore violations of quality control (20%), and violating the existing legal standards and norms (40%).