November 29, 2013. This year, the supply of available office space tended to decrease, while the rent growth slowed down. According to experts from Ural Chamber of Real Estate's Analytical Departments, the overall macroeconomic situation, which is anything but favorable, was the primary reason for this. The amount of new office space getting commissioned has been on the decrease. Whereas some 240,000 sq m of office space were commissioned in the last two years (mainly the business centers that were started even prior to the outbreak of the recession), only 33,000 sq m were commissioned

November 20, 2013. The Expert-Ural magazine carried a rating of the Urals and West Siberia-based companies that were most actively engaged in innovative activity in 2012. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) proved the most active among all the metallurgical companies in this territories. The rating was based on the data from the annual accounting reports published on the companies' official websites and in the information/analytical system SPARK. Geographically, the scope of the rating covered Sverdlovsk Region, Chelyabinsk Region, Orenburg Region, Tyumen Region (including

November 29, 2013. Students of ChTPZ Group's company education program called 'The Future of White Metallurgy' attended a series of lectures on modern technological art; this was part of the third session of Science Art Lab. The project is being implemented by Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ, a member enterprise of ChTPZ Group) in cooperation with Pervouralsk Palace of New Culture and with some support from the Russian Ministry of Culture, ChTPZ Group's press service says. Professor Dmitri Bulatov, the leading expert of Baltic Federal University's Innovations Park in

November 28, 2013. Yekaterinburg bookmakers did not prove interested in the city competing for the right to host the World Exhibition EXPO 2020. Today is the day when the hosting city for the event in 2020 will be announced in Paris, and no stakes can be made on Yekaterinburg winning or losing. This might have to do with the fact that the locals are not very interested in the exhibition themselves. One of the local bookmakers said Yekaterinburg residents used to be offered to make their stakes on important social or political events, but people expressed no interest whatsoever. This is why

November 28, 2013. ChTZ-Uraltrac (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod) is going to ship 3 DET 400 bulldozers to Cherepetskaya Power Station. The bulldozers will be used in putting up a new power generating unit and will also be operated at the station’s coal yard to transport coal, the corporation’s press service reports. The warranty set of spare parts for the bulldozers will be delivered onto the nearest technical warehouse that belongs to the plant, which is in Moscow, so that the necessary parts could be delivered to the customers as soon as possible if necessary. To launch the

November 28, 2013. Ford Motor announced that it was calling off more than 160,000 Escape units due to frequent cases of engine inflammation, RIA Novosti reports. The process will involve cars with 1.6 liter engine assembled in 2013 and sold on the North American market. The company explains the problem is that the cylinder heads turned out not to be strong enough. This part of the engine was destroyed during operation, which resulted in some oil getting into the engine and caused inflammation. The company reports that 13 such cases have been registered. In addition to the calling-off, the

November 28, 2013. The supply of office space in Yekaterinburg is 3.5 times behind Moscow’s, the analysts from Jones Lang LaSalle found out in the course of their comparative analysis of office space in non-capital cities of Russia. ‘The supply and demand in the office space segment usually reflect the pace of a city’s economic development, which, in its turn, affects the scale at which different businesses prefer to penetrate the market and therefore to become the potential tenants on the local market. Moscow is definitely Russia’s leading and largest office space market, which nearly 1.3 sq

November 28, 2013. The net assets of Russian banks exceeded 51 trillion RUR on October 1, 2013, which was 19.2% more than a year earlier. These data are available from the rating of Russia’s largest banks that was prepared by the analysts of RBC.Rating. The lending institutions were ranked in terms of asset volume, the loan book and the deposit portfolio volume, the volume of loans offered to private individuals and corporates, and other indicators, SKB-Bank reports. SKB-Bank was one of the country’s top 50 banks in terms of net asset volume and Sverdlovsk Region’s No.1 in terms of corporate

November 27, 2013. An old piano manufactured by the German company Offenbaher is going to be restored with support from Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (a member of ChTPZ Group). The instrument was presented to the enterprise by one of the plant workers, the company's press service reports. The piano was produced in the late 19th-early 20th century. According to the experts' estimates, the instrument was hand-made from oak; most likely, this was designed to meet a specific order. The front panel is fitted with hand-made chandeliers, the bearing frame is gilded and has some colored

November 27, 2013. One of Uralvagonzavod Corporation's key enterprises, Yekaterinburg-based Uraltansmash, reports that, just like the corporation's head plant, it fulfilled the government defense order for 2013 ahead of schedule, Uralvagonzavod Corporation's press service reports. Thanks to the smooth, coordinated, and professional performance of all the production and technological facilities involved in the fulfillment of the defense order, the enterprise finishes the production year off with great success. It is already by the end of November that the company fulfilled its

November 27, 2013. Ural Airlines is going to double the number of flights offered from Yekaterinburg to the most popular destinations in the summer of 2014. For one, starting from March 31, 2014, Yekaterinburg-Tel Aviv flight will be operated twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, the airline's press service reports. Starting from April 30, 2014, Yekaterinburg-Rome flight will be operated twice a week a well, on Wednesdays and Sundays. In addition to new time slots, the airline, which wants to make its customers happy, decided to operate the traditional winter time Yekaterinburg-Munich

November 27, 2013. In 2013, the number of job openings for the top management in the sales sector did not go up, but the number of job application actually rose by 13.8%, Superjob.ru's research findings indicate. Employers are looking to hire a person with great experience: in 61% of cases, three to six years' experience is a must, in 15% of cases, one needs to have over six years' experience to apply. Finding such a person is always a very trying task for the employer. There are often some additional job prerequisites such as fluent English, being ready to go on business

November 27, 2013. The Russian communal housing infrastructure's annual turnover is 4 trillion RUR, the Construction & Communal Housing Services Minister Mikhail Men said at the annual meeting of Chair of the Soviet of the Federation Valentina Matvienko with heads of ministries and departments, Prime reports. According to Men, this is nearly 7% of the Russian GDP. 'This means 140 million consumers, not counting the industrial sector,' the minister said. Men said that the infrastructure got over 60% worn out in the course of the last two decades. The minister pointed out

November 26, 2013. The 4th meeting of the Russia-Turkey Cooperation Council took place in Saint Petersburg on November 22. The Council was set up in 2010 to coordinate a number of important political, trade and economic, and cultural and humanitarian projects. The meeting was attended by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan, who arrived in Russia on business at Putin's invitation. The meeting included a business breakfast attended by Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov. 'We keep building

November 26, 2013. The 4th meeting of the Russia-Turkey Cooperation Council took place in Saint Petersburg on November 22. The Council was set up in 2010 to coordinate a number of important political, trade and economic, and cultural and humanitarian projects. The meeting was attended by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan, who arrived in Russia on business at Putin's invitation. The meeting included a business breakfast attended by Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov. 'We keep building

November 26, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region division of State Construction Surveillance Service conducted an on-site inspection of the developer UIT Uralstroy and detected violations of the federal legislation on the participatory lending construction of apartment buildings and other estate types, the division’s press service reports. At the time of the inspection, UIT Uralstroy is putting up two apartment buildings with non-residential space on the first and second floors and a half-built-in parking lot and a transformer substation in the place of another, half-finished building that is to be

November 26, 2013. Bank Koltso Urala was rated Sverdlovsk Region’s 3d and Russia’s 88th most profitable banks in the nine months of 2013. On Monday, November 25, Banki.ru’s experts carried a analytical report based on the financial performance data from 939 lending institutions, Bank Koltso Urala’s press service reports. Bank Koltso Urala made it to the local top three and the nation’s top 100 with the net profit of 504.556m RUR (as of October 2013). The bank’s financial performance improved by more than two times (101.23%) compared with a year earlier and let the bank move up by 48 positions

November 26, 2013. Uralmashzavod is going to hand over to Gazprombank Asset Management 5,000,000,023 RUR worth of shares, the issuer’s official statement goes. Under the terms of the agreement, Uralmashzavod will transfer 74,917,591 ordinary registered uncertified shares of the additional issue 1-01-00297-А-002D with face value of 0.5 RUR each to the daughter company of Gazprom (the plant’s majority shareholder) via close subscription. The offering price is 66.74 RUR. The deal is estimated to come to 27% of the issuer’s assets value.

November 26, 2013. Omsk-based airline ORENAIR is going to start operating direct flights to Germany during next year’s spring/summer season. The tickets for Yekaterinburg-Hannover-Yekaterinburg flights are already available for sale, the press officer of Yekaterinburg Koltsovo Airport reports. It was announced on November 8 that the German company Lufthansa that operates direct flights from Yekaterinburg to Frankfurt will no longer offer this flight starting from next year due to the need to cut costs. Koltsovo Airport said then that they were planning to keep offering this destination and

November 26, 2013. United Company RUSAL is planning to freeze aluminum production at the 6th section of Bogoslovsky smelter (BAZ) in Krasnoturyinsk, Kommersant refers to the company’s press service as saying. The electrolysis production is expected to be resumed ‘after the economic situation gets better’. At the moment, the high prime cost of metal production at BAZ ($2,100 per 1,000kg) makes aluminum production unprofitable, as the prime cost of aluminum is $1,700 per 1,000kg. RUSAL froze the aluminum production at Ural smelter in Kamensk-Uralsky earlier, as well as cut back on aluminum