MOSCOW - Aeroflot 's board of directors elected Alexander Zurabov, the airline's deputy CEO and an aviation adviser to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, as chairman on Friday at its third attempt. Two previous meetings had failed to meet due to a lack of quorum. The state, which owns 51.17 percent of Aeroflot's shares, had instructed its representatives to vote for Zurabov in the election of Aeroflot's board chairman, a move that was opposed by the company's CEO, Valery Okulov.

ULAN BATOR - As Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeyev reported after the 10th meeting of the Russian-Mongolian intergovernmental commission, the parties agreed to maintain the division of shares in the authorized capital of the Mongolian Erdenet plant between Russia and Mongolia - 49% and 51%, respectively. As reported earlier, the Mongolian side demanded that its package be increased to 80%. (INTERFAX).

MOSCOW - Shareholders of the Severstal steel plant voted against increasing the authorized capital by issuing an additional 60 million shares at their annual meeting on Friday. Currently, the authorized capital of JSC Severstal is 5.519 million rubles, divided into 22.074192 million shares at 0.25 rubles each. The issue of including a clause on 60 million authorized shares in the Severstal charter was included in the agenda of the annual meeting of shareholders of the plant back in March. As Severstal press secretary Olga Yezhova explained to Vedomosti, the company's shareholders are negotiating a possible business merger with unnamed strategic investors, and the additional issue was supposed to be used to exchange assets. However, the owners of Severstal have not yet managed to complete the negotiations. Yezhova does not rule out that the decision on the authorized shares may be made at an extraordinary meeting of Severstal shareholders. Market analysts name Arcelor as a possible partner. Arcelor's press service knows nothing about negotiations with Severstal.

MOSCOW - Sibneft's net profit for 2002 increased 2.5 times and amounted to 2.488 billion rubles. Profit before tax increased 2.1 times and amounted to 3.690 billion rubles. Revenue from sales increased 1.4 times and amounted to 82.268 billion rubles. The cost of production in 2002 also increased 1.3 times and amounted to 66.581 billion rubles. Sibneft's net profit for the first quarter of 2003 amounted to 463.9 million rubles against a net loss of 486.7 million rubles for the same period last year. (PRIME-TASS).

MOSCOW - The revenue of OAO LUKOIL in 2002 under Russian Accounting Standards exceeded 231 billion rubles, which is 1.2 times more than in 2001. The cost of production remained virtually unchanged and amounted to 128.216 billion rubles. Profit before tax increased 2.2 times to 64.936 billion rubles, while net profit increased 2.3 times to 47.536 billion rubles. According to the results of work in the first quarter of 2003, the revenue of OAO increased 1.5 times compared to the same period in 2002 and amounted to 66.056 billion rubles. The cost of production increased 1.2 times to 34.843 billion rubles. Net profit increased 3.6 times to 18.976 billion rubles. (INTERFAX-ANI).

Real disposable monetary income of the population of Russia (adjusted for inflation) in January-April 2003 increased by 14.4% compared to the same period in 2002, the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation reported. In April of this year, compared to the same month in 2002, real monetary income of Russians increased by 11.4%. The nominal value of monetary income of one Russian in April of this year was 5144.2 rubles per month. (INTERFAX).

Real incomes of Russians are growing