‘MTS submitted its revised tax declarations for 2008 in 2009; as a result, we paid a smaller property tax because our earlier years’ payments had actually been greater than necessary,’ OAO MTS Ural Macro-region’s PR expert Darya Volkhina.

In the meantime, the regional government’s business support committee declared recently that the local branch of OAO VympelCommunications (Beeline) and OAO MTS were directing less money to the regional budget.

‘MTS did not make any of its Yekaterinburg branch’s employees redundant last year. Quite on the contrary, the company created over a hundred new jobs through the expansion of retail outlets network,’ Volkhina said.