August 22, 2013. Ural Locomotives (Sinara Group and Siemens AG’s joint venture based in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region) got the IRIS certification and now meets the international railway requirements. The certificate was issued by a group of auditors from Quality Austria and upon its recommendation, Sinara Group’s PR Department reports. The IRIS (International Railware Industry Standard) certification system was designed at the European railway union’s (UNIFE) initiative to improve the quality of products and services among the railway industry suppliers. Ural Locomotives started

August 22, 2013. A solemn awarding ceremony for the winners of media contests held to support the professional skills (held under the slogan of Glory to the Man of Labor!) took place in Yekaterinburg. The awards were given out by Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation in Ural Federal District Igor Kholmanskikh, ChTPZ Group’s press service reports. ‘Glory to the Man of Labor proved a successful project and is now growing nation-wide. This was in many ways due to the strong media support and the contests held within the framework of this project. The interest these contests

August 22, 2013. As of July 1, 2013, Sverdlovsk Region fiscal authorities published about 131,000 notifications on excluding the non-operating legal entities from the United State Register of Legal Entities in Vestnik Gosudarstvennoy Registratsii, Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service reports. In the first half of 2013, 23,000 notifications were published and 101,000 legal entities were excluded from the register altogether (14,000 in the first half of the year). Now the registering authority has the power to take certain types of organizations off the list

August 22, 2013. The median interest rate on a ruble loan proposed by Russian banks (excluding Sberbank) to its private customers came to 24.3% in July 2013, the Central Bank reports. This is the lowest figure in this year so far; a month earlier, the rate came to 24.9%, in January, it was 26.2%. The median interest rate on loans that are over one year long also went down to this year’s lowest (from 20.5% down to 20.1%), Banki.ru reports. The median interest rate on loans offered to corporates outside the financial sector for a period of less than a year is now 9.9% against 10.1% a month

August 22, 2013. A criminal lawsuit involving the former DG of Yushalinsky Woodworking Plant Ekaterina Zoteyeva was directed to court. The spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities is now accused of failing to act as a fiscal agent for reasons of personal gain (Article 199.1(Part 1) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code) and tax evasion (Article 199.2 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code). The investigative team believe Zoteyeva, when she was the plant’s director in May 2010 to June 2011, avoided paying over 2.4m RUR worth of personal income tax due to be paid by