August 1, 2013. The Russian Institute of Directors confrmed the corproate governance rating of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) at 8 along the national scale (Advanced Corporate Governance Practices). The changes in MMK corporate governance policy that took place during the monitoring period (July 24, 2013 to July 30, 2013) did not affect the rating estimate. In 2012, MMK implemented a number of projects aimed at improving the company's risk management system and approved of the new Charter and some other internal documentation. MMK's corproate governance rating on the

August 1, 2013. METCOMBANK customers can now buy some foreign currency without setting foot outside their homes using METCOM-Online, the new e-banking service, the bank reports. 'Foreign currency transactions can be performed via both the regular e-banking service and the m-banking one. The service is very handy for those who are trying to save up some money before their vacations or simply prefer to keep their savings in euros or dollars,' says METCOMBANK Chairman of the Supervisory Board Dmitri Torbenko. One can make the purchase using the Money Transfer (Transfer into My Account)

August 1, 2013. Ural Airlines operated its first Chelyabinsk-Namangan flight, the company's press service reports. Passengers on this new flight set off for Uzbekistan at 10 AM on July 31, 2013 (local time) on a comfortable Airbus 320 plane. Now the flights from Chelyabinsk to Namangan will be offered once a week, every Wednesday. The cheapest one-way tickets are available for ?200 (excluding the fees). Ural Airlines have been operating flights to Namangan from Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Krasnoyarsk. The new Chelyabinsk-Namangan flight will be available through late

August 1, 2013. Ural Airlines is launching a new flight from Krasnoyarsk to Samarkand that will connect Eastern Siberia to one of Uzbekistan's largest cities, the airline's press service reports. 'The first Krasnoyarsk-Samarkand-Krasnoyarsk flight will be operated on August 8, 2013 and will be offered every Thursday. The price of a one-way ticket starts from ?210 (plus the fees),' the company's press release says. Samarkand is now Uzbekistan's third city to have Ural Airlines flights offered from Krasnoyarsk. These flights will be operated on the Airbus family

August 1, 2013. Ural Federal District and North-Caucasian Federal District submit the smallest number of patent applications among all the Russian federal constituencies. Ural Federal District's share in the total number of applications comes to a mere 2%, the spokesperson for Rospatent, the Russian Intellectual Property Protection Service, reports. In the first half of 2013, only 731 private individuals applied for patents, and only 2% of these applications were residents of Ural Federal District. 54% of applicants are based in Central Russia, 13% live in the South of Russia, 12% come

August 1, 2013. Auditors from the international certification body TUV NORD CERT (based in Germany) conducted a re-certification audit of MMK-METIZ quality management system to check the system's compliance with the ISO 9001:2008 and ISO/TS 16949:2009 requirements. Following the results of the audit, the auditors' committee recommended TUV NORD CERT to issue a certificate of compliance with the ISO 9001:2008 and ISO/TS 16949:2009 requirements for MMK-METIZ quality management system. In order to be able to supply more goods to the car-makers, MMK-METIZ is also planning to have its