Today in Russian Business – September 3, 2009

The Moscow Times reports that the government spent $10.7 billion of the state budget on fighting the financial crisis in the first six months of the year.  A Russian-Indian project to build a titanium factory in east India has been jeopardized by a shareholder dispute.  Telephone tycoon Yevgeny Chichvarkin, who is exiled in Britain, says he may set up a business there, ‘maybe something in the service industry’.  The former Yevroset chairman says he has no fear of the charges held against him in Russia and does not plan to return until it becomes ‘a free country’.  The ex-President of Avtovaz, Boris Alyoshin, will become an adviser to the Director General of Rostekhnologii.  Booming retailer Magnit will sell 11.2 million new shares to help finance expansion plans.  Russia’s airline industry saw passenger numbers fall 16.5% in the first six months of the year.  Discreet Russian billionaire Gennady Timchenko has revealed that he has built up an 18% share in Novatek.  The government has denied that it plans to prevent access to Skype.  Rusnano head Anatoly Chubais has told reporters that the fledgling nanotechnology industry will need 150,000 specialists by 2015.