The average existing home prices (per square meter of dwelling) in the center of Yekaterinburg (i.e. in Moskovskaya St., Chelyuskintsy St., Vostochnaya St., Dekabristy St., Belinskiy St., and Bolshakov St.) went up 5.48% on February 6, 2007, compared with January 9, 2007, reports the Analytical Department of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate. The figure rose by 3.76% in Yekaterinburg’s most expensive residential area (Avtovokzal, Yugo-Zapadniy, Parkoviy, Botanicheskiy, Vtuzgorodok, Shartashskiy, ZhBI – downtown and the south-west and the south-east of the city), by 3.84% in the city’s second

The Board of Directors of RAO UES of Russia approved of the share-selling auctions schedule for the first quarter of 2007. The company is going to sell shares of a number of power supplying enterprises, namely, those of SverdlovEnergoSbyt and OhrenburgEnergoSbyt, and stock of supplying companies based in Belgorod, Vologda, Kola Peninsula, Kuban, Kuzbass, and Nizhniy Novgorod. The dates of the auctions are to be announced in March 2007, the auctions themselves will take place this April. The original decision to sell the shares was made by the Board on December 8, 2006, reports the

United Machine Building Works (aka OMZ (Obedinennye Mashinostroitelnye Zavody, formerly United Heavy Machinery) and MetalloInvest Management Company decided to set up a large industrial corporation that will unite UZTM (Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant), Uralmash-SpetsStal Ltd., OMZ DRO, OMZ Crane Ltd., and ORMETO-YUMZ Heavy Engineering Joint Stock Co. After the companies, based in Yekaterinburg and Ohrsk, merge to form one business, this large enterprise will be capable of becoming the CIS’ leading metallurgical equipment producer. The joint shares of ORMETO-YUMZ and Uralmash will amount to

Uralmashzavod has been cooperating with some other Russian companies for quite a while now. The plant, for example, finished assembling a crane for SeverStal in September 2006. The crane was launched in February 2007 after a series of tests conducted in mid-January, reports the spokesperson for Uralmashzavod. SeverStal has recently announced a tender for the delivery of two 500-ton cranes; OMZ-Crane and Uralmashzavod will have to compete with SibTyazhMash, and the decision is to be made at the end of January or beginning of February 2007. The caster crane was supplied to SeverStal at the end

Ural Turbine Plant (part of RENOVA Group) made $37.2 million worth of profits in 2006, which is 33% better than a year earlier, reports the spokesperson for Ural Turbine Plant. The company only fell short of the target production figures by 1.2% (the figures exceeded those for 2005 by 1.6 times). The plant produced four steam turbines and one gas one, as well as over 1,000 spare parts for steam turbines and over 800 spare parts for gas turbines. The total value of all contracts for the supply of steam turbines signed by the company last year exceeded that of the contracts signed in 2005 by

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel and Igor Levitin, Minister for Transportation, met on February 9, 2007 to discuss the transportation network development in the region. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, there was some heated debate about the need for the third runway in Koltsovo airport. Koltsovo’s General Director Mikhail Maximov reported that the company had invested 140 million RUR in the airport reconstruction in 2006 and was going to spend another 160 million in 2007. He said the management had two projects, one providing for the construction of a

Ural Airlines assessed their performance in January 2007. The carrier’s passenger turnover exceeded the figures for January 2006 by 23%. The company has performed 732 flights since January 1, 2007, which is 17% better than a year earlier. The number of regular international flights went up 50%, that of international chartered flights by 96%, that of domestic flights by 5.3%. 68,588 people used the carrier in January 2007, which exceeds the figures for last January by 37%. In addition, the company transferred 52% more mail and 13% more freight against January 2006. The company managed to raise

‘Yekaterinburg is Russia’s second most dynamically developing city in terms of emerging trade centers, outstripped only by Moscow. The market has by now reached the point of 80% to 90% saturation, so one could expect the competition to grow stronger in the nearest future,’ Alexei Vanchugov, the spokesperson for Mall Management, said to UrBC. ‘I believe the local market is comparable to that of a European city as regards the range of products and services and the infrastructure development. This is only natural, since most projects have been inspired by their western counterparts. As regards

Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil, Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise, and Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise of Kachkanar (members of Evraz Group) summed up the results of the annual labor protection agreement signed by the companies’ employees and managements, reports the spokesperson for Evraz Group. This agreement is part of the companies’ collective agreements; it covers a number of measures aimed at improving the employees’ working environment and providing for their safety. Last year, these measures affected over 5,000 people working for Evraz Group in

‘The inquiry into affairs of IrtyshHydroSpetsStroy (part of Noviy Grad, the developer) is still going on,’ said Vladimir Chechkan, officer of Administration of Internal Affairs of Khanty-Mansiyskiy Autonomous Region. ‘Right now, the criminal suit is at the investigation stage. The first results will probably be obtained within a month,’ he explained. IrtyshHydroSpetsStroy (part of Noviy Grad) is accused of doing construction work without proper permissions and papers. ‘The violations mostly have to do with the lack of papers needed to do any construction work; the company, for example, has

Sales of federal property in Sverdlovsk Region yielded 343 million RUR in 2006, reported Valeriy Suvorov, Head of the regional subsidiary of Federal Property Fund. According to Mr Suvorov, Pervouralskiy Dinas Plant, aka Dinur (sold for 225.5 million RUR), Kurgangiprozem (sold for 50.4 million), and UralTurfProject (sold for 18.8 million) were the largest companies privatized last year. The Fund also sold 268 million RUR worth of land allotments and 16.1 million RUR worth of military type property. This year, the Fund is going to sell 50 share holdings of state-owned enterprises and about 10

Home Credit and Finance Bank Ltd. appealed to Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) asking to extend the deadline for eliminating the violations of consumer rights related to consumer loans given by the bank. The bank was ordered to deal with all the violations after the investigation conducted by Rospotrebnadzor at the request of dissatisfied borrowers. The investigation revealed a number of offenses connected with consumer loans. The legitimacy of the order has already been confirmed by Sverdlovsk Region Court of Arbitration and the Federal Court

According to Sverdlovsk Region division of Federal Tax Service, the regional officers conducted 196 inspections of businesses (which exceeds the figures for 2005 by 29.8%) and 48 inspections involving natural persons in 2006. As a result, 1,077,900,000 RUR were recovered following the inspections of businesses (which exceeds the figures for 2005 by 671.4 million, or by 2.6 times), and 79.6 million RUR were recovered after the inspections involving natural persons (which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 68 million RUR, or by 6.9 times).

A modernized electric dust-trapping filter has recently been re-launched at the agglomeration shop of Vanadium Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise of Kachkanar (part of Evraz Group), reports the spokesperson for Evraz. The device is fitted with powerful electrodes capable of trapping the tiniest bits of iron-ore concentrate known as agglomeration dust. Now, the facility will reduce the harmful atmospheric emissions by 3,500 tons a year. In addition, recovered dust can be used for further production of concentrate. The repair process began in September 2006; in a few months, the dust-catching

‘The ticket sale of Ural Airlines covering summer flights is going to be very popular with travelers,’ says Tatiana Serebryakova, director of Eldorado Tour Travel Agency. (Anyone willing to get to the Black Sea in the summer can buy a single ticket for only 3,999 RUR from February 1 to March 31, 2007.) ‘Traveling by plane is much faster and more comfortable than taking the train, whereas the prices are pretty much the same. People will naturally choose to take advantage of this bargain offered by the carrier,’ Ms Serebryakova explains.

SKODA JS a.s. (based in the Czech Republic), part of United Machine Building Works (aka OMZ (Obedinennye Mashinostroitelnye Zavody, formerly United Heavy Machinery), has recently signed a contract for the delivery of a TC1 transportation container to Paul Scherrer Institut of Switzerland. The deal is worth about ?500,000, with the delivery scheduled for the beginning of 2008. The diameter of the container should come to 1.1 meters, its length to 6 meters, and weight to 40 tons. It will be used for Megapie (Megawatt Pilot Target Experiment), the international nuclear research project, namely,

According to the Central Bank of Russia, the volume of investments placed by nongovernmental commercial bodies with UralTransBank in form of deposits for a term of 181 days to 1 year went down 60.8% (from 149,572,000 RUR to 58,549,000 RUR) from January 2006 to January 2007.

MegaFon Ural, the mobile operator, is offering its subscribers a new extended USSD-inquiry service. One can now learn if the 30-MB Internet traffic package is provided for their MegaFon Modem tariff or get information on the number of text messages covered by the monthly subscription fee (this concerns Student tariff) at 100 16#. The same USSD-inquiry can also be used for updates on the amount of conversation time covered by the fee. The current account information is still available at 100#.

‘Existing home prices might go up 25% to 35% this year,’ Alexander Dmitriev, director of Dial Real-Estate Agency, said to UrBC representative. ‘The price of a square meter of dwelling grew by more than 100% last year, and it was clear in December already that the market could not possibly sustain this pace. So the price growth rate has slowed down, even though the prices still tend to go up. I am inclined to see this as some kind of inertia, as the realtors haven’t been able to adapt to the new conditions yet. The growth rate will get even slower in a couple of months,’ Mr. Dmitriev said. ‘It

The experts of SKB-Bank’s Mortgage Lending Center have developed and launched a new product consisting in offering a client a mortgage loan meant for covering the one obtained earlier. ‘The need for this offer has been keenly felt for quite a while. The annual interest rate on mortgage loans in Russia has been gradually decreasing from 18% to 11% over the last three years, so mortgage is becoming available to more and more people,’ says Anna Samuilova, the bank’s Mortgage Lending Director ‘Both the life of the people and the country’s economy kept changing, whereas the interest rate on an