Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) supplied more metal goods to the Middle East in the year 2009 compared to the year 2008, MMK PR Department reports. Last year, MMK delivered 1,661 tons of goods to this key export region, which was 5% more than in 2008. Also, 35% of the company’s foreign market sales was exported to Asia and the Far East, 11% was supplied to Europe, and 6% was delivered to African countries. 1% and 3.6% of MMK’s exported goods went to North America and Central/South America, respectively. All in all, MMK exported 3,861 tons of goods last year. At the same time, the

The twelve departments of A.M. Gorkiy Ural State University are going to merge into four institutes by the summer of 2010. The public hearings on the new institutes’ design and policies will take place at USU on February 16-18, 2010; everyone is welcome to take part in the discussion. The decision regarding the merger and the hearing was taken by the university’s academic council. Ural State University is to be divided into the institutes of Mathematics & Computer Science, Natural Sciences, Political Sciences & Sociology, and Humanities. In addition to this, the departments now

President of Russian Railways Public Company Vladimir Yakunin held a telephone conference with his administration on the company’s performance in January 2010. Yakunin said the railways’ passenger turnover dropped by over 11% in January 2010 compared with the previous January. In order to make sure there are enough commuter trains in the Russian regions, Russian Railways intends to cooperate more effectively with the regional authorities. According to the company’s President, the regional budgets provided the business with 2.8 billion RUR last year in compensation for the losses the railways

OAO CIT Finance Investment Bank announced it was going to close down the company’s representations in thirty Russian cities including the ones in Nizhniy Tagil, Perm, and Nizhnevartovsk. The bank says this will be done due to the need to make their regional subsidiary network more cost-efficient.

Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) section iron division’s enterprises, which were united under OOO NLMK-Sort’s management in December 2009, produced 1.7 million tons of steel in 2009. This was 11% less than in 2008. Also, the enterprises sold 1 million tons of reinforcing bar to their customers, which was 5.7% less than in the year 2008. On the other hand, the sales of wire rod were up 1.2% last year compared to the year before and amounted to 68,000 tons. The sales of metal products also increased by 29% in 2009 compared to 2008, reaching 188,000 tons. However, the amount of steel

Microsoft once again came up with the findings of its piracy monitoring research involving retail computer stores in Russian provinces. According to these findings, about a quarter of the 2,500 outlets inspected (all of which are located in fifty-three different cities of Russia) offer unlicensed software for sale in one way or another. 11% of the stores inspected offer their customers pre-installed pirated software. Microsoft reports that, despite the general decrease in the supply of counterfeits (from 63% of the total market volume in September 2009 down to 30% in November and December