August 2, 2013. The retail trade turnover amounted to 448.2m RUR in Sverdlovsk Region in January-June 2013, which was 5.5% more than a year earlier, the region's Economic Development Ministry reports. According to the Ministry's statistical data, the food/non-food items ratio was 46.4%/53.6% in the retail sector; the volume of food items in the first half of 2013 was 3.6% larger than a year earlier, and the volume of non-food item sales was 7.1% greater. The catering industry turnover came to 22.6bn RUR in January-June 2013, which is 5.5% more than a year earlier in comparable

August 2, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region is now the constituency with the third biggest amount of new foreign cars purchased by locals: 42,700 cars were sold in the first half of 2013, which is 2,500 less than a year earlier. All in all, 1.04m foreign cars were sold in Russia over this period, which is 4.5% less than a year earlier, Avtostat, an analytics agency, reports. Moscow residents still buy the largest number of cars: 31.5% of all the foreign cats that were sold in Russia in January-June 2013 were sold in Moscow. Saint-Petersburg, which represents 8.7% of all sales, is the city with the

August 2, 2013. The possibility of the electrolysis production stoppage at Bogoslovsky smelter was considered at the Krasnoturyinsk Duma's extraordinary meeting. The Duma deputies decided to write a letter to the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region, asking him to try and prevent the stoppage of the 6th section, as this section is responsible for the production of goods for the automobile industry. An official representative of UC RUSAL in Ural Federal District Roman Lukichev told UrBC that the company is now looking at different formats an enterprise could operate in under the current

August 2, 2013. Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev signed a provision on allocating Sverdlovsk Region a sum of money to build a football stadium in preparation for the World Cup 2018. The Russian Federation Government's official website states that Sverdlovsk Region is one of the seven federal constituencies to split 2.9bn RUR among themselves. These constituencies are: Mordovia, Volgograd Region, Kaliningrad Region, Nizhniy Novgorod Region, Samara Region, and Rostov Region. 'The implementation of this provision means we can finance the construction or reconstruction of 7

August 2, 2013. The Director of the Education & Science Ministry's Program and Tender Management Department Sergey Kravtsov was appointed Head of Rosobrnadzor, the Federal Education & Science Surveillance Service,' Kommersant reports. According to the newspaper, the candidacy was proposed by Dmitri Livanov. His choice must now be approved of by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, who dismissed Ivan Muravyov yesterday. Kravtsov himself chose not to offer any comments for the press. Now the 30-year-old Ivan Muravyov became Head of Rosobrnadzor last fall. His dismissal was preceded