Official unemployment stays unchanged in Russia in January

NOVO-OGAREVO, February 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Official unemployment in
Russia virtually did not change in January and stayed at 1,580,000 people,
First Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said at a meeting of the
government presidium on Wednesday, February 2.
The number of officially registered unemployed people in the same
period last year was 600,000 bigger.
Partially employed are 445,000 people, a decrease of 1,200,000 people
from last year.
"Regional employment programmes have been working effectively," Zhukov
said, adding that special attention was paid to retraining.
The total amount of budget appropriations earmarked for regional
employment programmes in 2011 is 27 billion roubles.
"Almost half of this sum will go into training and retraining," Zhukov
said.
He said social works would be used mainly in one-company towns this
year.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin noted that the unemployment situation
was improving.

.Sberbank plans to buy Troika Dialog.

MOSCOW, February 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's Sberbank (savings bank)
plans to buy practically the whole Troika Dialog company, a source
familiar with the terms of the deal said.
"The share is big, almost all of it," he said, the Prime-Tass business
news agency reported.
Sberbank has set itself the task of creating a full-fledged investment
business. Earlier, it considered several options, such as creating its own
investment unit or buying an existing investment company, Russia or
foreign.
However sources on the financial market have lately been talking more
and more often about Sberbank's plans to buy Troika Dialog.
In late January, Troika Dialog's principal shareholder Ruben Vardanyan
told Dow Jones on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos that
the sale of Troika Dialog to Sberbank was being considered as one of the
options.
Troika Dialog is the oldest and largest private investment bank in the
CIS. "Throughout our 19-year history, we have consistently demonstrated
market leadership in our core lines of business: capital markets,
investment banking, asset management, alternative investments, and
personal investments and finance. We are an integrated securities firm
that aims to bring the best global solutions and world-class service to
clients," its website says.
Troika Dialog is an independent full service integrated investment
bank and asset management firm in Russia and the CIS. Since its creation
in 1991, Troika Dialog has developed its core lines of business:
securities sales and trading, investment banking, private wealth and asset
management, retail distribution and alternative investments. The company
focuses on markets in Russia and other CIS countries.
Troika Dialog operates in more than 20 cities in Russia and has
offices in London, New York, Kiev, Almaty, and Nicosia. Troika Dialog's
clients include leading Russian and international companies, financial
institutions, government agencies and high net worth individuals.
Troika Dialog is privately owned by 109 employee partners. In March
2009, the company announced a strategic alliance with Standard Bank Group
under which Standard Bank will become a 33 percent shareholder in Troika
Dialog.
Sberbank reported an unprecedented profit of 152 billion roubles in
the first 11 months of 2010, bank CEO German Gref said earlier.
"The bank has never received such a profit before, especially since
the global financial crisis fell on 2010," he said.
He believes that "the bank's personnel did an excellent job."
While two years ago "there were slightly more than 20 million Sberbank
card holders, now their number has increased to 55 million" which
"testifies to people's trust in Sberbank's work," Gref said.

.FMS may be separated from Interior Ministry -- Medvedev.

MOSCOW, February 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's Federal Migration Service
(FMS) may be separated from the Interior Ministry, President Dmitry
Medvedev said.
"The separation of the FMS from the Interior Ministry is a question on
the current agenda. This will have to be done sooner or later," Medvedev
said at a meeting of the Council on Civil Society and Human Rights in
Yekaterinburg earlier this week.
The verbatim report of the meeting has been posted on the Kremlin's
official website.
"The question is when to start this process. In fact, it will have to
be started sooner or later," he added.
"Despite the popular opinion, the Interior Ministry does not want to
grab everything, let alone increase the scope of its jurisdiction. I can
tell you frankly, at meetings behind closed doors, which I hold on a
regular basis, they try to get rid of this for obvious departmental
reasons: take this from us, including migration," the president said.
"The problem is that there is no one to give it to," he added.
This is also true of other functions, such as enforcement proceedings.
"This is why all this has to be gradually separated from the Interior
Ministry and handed over either to civilian agencies or maybe even to
private entities," Medvedev said.