MOSCOW (Standard & Poor's) Aug. 10, 2004--Standard & Poor's Governance Services said today it affirmed its corporate governance score (CGS) on Russia-based fixed-line telecoms service provider OJSC Uralsvyazinform at 'CGS-6'. At the same time, Standard & Poor's raised the Russia national scale CGS on Uralsvyazinform to 'CGS-6.2' from 'CGS-6.1'.

"Uralsvyazinform's management has demonstrated its willingness to improve corporate governance practices and its commitment to increasing shareholder value. An important positive factor is the ability of management to negotiate more attractive terms for transactions initiated by the majority shareholder, Svyazinvest," said Standard & Poor's governance specialist Oleg Chvyrkov.

The overall CGS on Uralsvyazinform is the result of four component scores on a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high):

• Ownership structure and external influences - 6.3
• Shareholder rights and stakeholder relations - 7.3
• Transparency, disclosure, and audit - 6.0
• Board structure and effectiveness - 5.1

More detailed information may be found at Standard & Poor's web-site at www.governance.standardandpoors.com and Uralsvyazinform's web-site in Ratings section.

Dmitry Samoilov, Director for Corporate Governance noted, "over the last year, the company has taken a number of steps to further enhance its governance practices, openness and financial transparency, increase the accountability to its shareholders and investors. In particular, the newly adopted Corporate Conduct Code established a corpus of governance standards that are stricter than what is required by Russian legislation".

The company has also devised and approved the Statements of Dividend Policy, the formalized Procedures of Disclosure to Shareholders, and Regulations of Corporate Secretary. After re-election in July 2004, the Board of Directors has set up four permanent committees (there were two committees prior re-election): Corporate Governance Committee, Committee for Strategic and Investment Planning and Budgeting, Personnel and Remuneration Committee and Audit Committee.