December 7, 2012 An international conference called ‘Foundry Council 6’ is held in Yekaterinburg on December 6-7, 2012. The agenda of the conference covers coming up with some recommendations for the foundry industry, looking into its development potential, methods of quality control, equipment upgrades, and getting acquainted with the most advanced coating, thermal treatment, and mechanical treatment technologies, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service & Information Administration reports. Over 200 experts from Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Slovenia, Croatia,

December 7, 2012 Oblkommunenergo is setting up a logistics center on the premises of Artemovsky power station for the delivery of fuel, machinery, and materials onto its divisions in 43 local towns, the enterprise’s PR Department reports. Experts say the location of both Artemovsky and the power station warehouses meets all the necessary conditions for creating such a center: there are railways there, as well as specialized equipment; what is more, cranes and loaders will be introduced soon. These warehouses are already being used to store the fuel for the company’s divisions and other

December 7, 2012 A group of delegates from the Economy Facilitation Department of Saxony, Germany, arrived in Sverdlovsk Region in order to look at the cooperation options relating to the use of resource-efficient production technologies, scientific research findings, and R&D achievements in machine-building, Sverdlovsk Region Press Service & Information Administration reports. ‘These delegates are representatives of machine-building plants and enterprises with experience in welding, sheet-metalworking, and metal treatment that are quite interested in doing business with us. We have

December 7, 2012 Sverdlovsk Region authorities reconsidered their spending on the special economic zone Titanium Valley. At the moment, this spending amounts to 16.8bn RUR, a half of which is to be allocated from the regional budget, while the other half is to be provided for from the federal funds, Governor Evgeny Kuivashev announced at a briefing today. ‘Out of the 8bn RUR we spend, some 4bn RUR will pay off: these are investments in things like electric mains and heating and power stations. In 13 to 18 years, this will pay off through end user rates. The money for these projects will be

December 7, 2012 In the third quarter of 2012, the retail deposits volume in Ural Federal District-based banks rose by 5.8bn RUR and came to 344.2bn RUR (against 1.3bn RUR increase in Q3’11). In relative terms, the growth in Q3’12 was 1.7% — the same as in Russia on the whole (compared with 0.4% in the third quarter of 2011), The Deposit Insurance Agency State Corporation reports. All in all, the local banks’ deposits volume rose by 28.5bn RUR in the nine months of 2012 (compared with 18.6bn RUR in January-September 2011). The daily increase went down to 62.7m RUR in Q3 against 227m RUR a day