February 18, 2015. Sinara Group is going to build a new highway in Volgograd Region to connect Moskovskaya St in Krasnoslobodsk to Vtoraya Pyatiletka in Sredneakhtubinsk. The highway will reduce the time it takes to get from the bridge across the Volga to Bukatin Lug (a new district of Krasnoslobodsk that Sinara Development is putting up there), Sinara Group’s PR Center reports. The highway construction project is part of the government program on the development of Volgograd Region’s transport infrastructure in 2014-2016. The project documentation was prepared by Sinara Development within

February 18, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s experts met with the representatives of Rift Valley Railways, a company that maintains the railways in Kenya and Rwanda. According to the corporation’s press service, the African company’s delegates paid a visit to the company’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil in order to talk over their cooperation prospects. Uralvagonzavod might, for example, compete for the contract for 480 meter-gauge railway platforms. The delegates also took an inertest in Uralcryomash’s tank containers. ‘The terms of delivery we offer, as well as our prices and approach to

February 18, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region-based businesses’ revenues rose by 13.6% in January 2015 compared with a year earlier, Sverdlovskstat reports. For one, the processing sector’s revenues went up by 30.4%, the agricultural, hunting, and timber industries’ revenues went up by 28.5%, and the construction sector’s revenues increased by 8.4%. At the same time, the revenues in the production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water and in the education sector declined by 5.4% and 2.5%, respectively.

February 18, 2015. Russian air carriers’ overall passenger traffic might drop by 7.6% in 2015, Russia’s Economic Development Ministry’s updated forecast states. Domestic air travel could shrink due to the weakening ruble and the decrease in the population’s actual income as well as growing airplane leasing expenses. As for last year, air traffic actually rose by 10.2% compared with 2013. The ministry also says that Russians’ falling incomes will result in smaller trade turnover (-5.9% for food items and -10.2% for non-food items). The average household’s private consumption will also go down

February 18, 2015. 305,800 m2 worth of new housing got commissioned in Sverdlovsk Region in January 2015; this was 5.9 times more than in January 2014. According to Sverdlovskstat, the figure includes 143,800 m2 worth of private housing construction, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 2.8 times.