August 31, 2015. The amount of money transferred to Russia via money orders dropped by 15% in the second half of 2015 and came to $840m against $983m in the previous quarter, Banki.ru refers to the Central Bank as stating. The decrease was primarily brought about by the shrinking amount of money coming from the CIS member states ($597m against $756m in the first quarter of the year). On the other hand, as much as $243m came from the far abroad, compared with $228m in January-March. These figures were larger last year, including the overall amount of money transferred to the country from

August 31, 2105. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) inspected 2,860 kg of butter and margarine in the first half of the year and found 380 kg (13.3%) not to meet the existing quality requirements, the agency's press service reports. 94% of faulty items were already past their sell-by date. 32 butter and margarine samples were tested for compliance with the required bacteriological, physical, organoleptic, and chemical parameters. All the samples met the technical regulations and normative standards.

August 31, 2015. The trustee in bankruptcy appointed to Plato Bank by the Bank of Russia after the former's license had been revoked determined that the bank's assets amount to no more than 473m RUR, while its creditors' claims come to 907.3m RUR, the Bank of Russia's press service reports. 'It was determined in the course of an investigation that nearly all of the bank's borrowers had received their loans in no relation whatsoever to what business they had been doing. The bank's transactions look like mere withdrawal operations, involving, in fact, private

August 31, 2015. Russia's Deputy Minister for Industry & Trade Alexander Morozov paid a visit to Burevestnik Research Institute (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) within the framework of the ministry delegates' recent trip to Nizhniy Novgorod Region. The official spoke highly of the enterprise's innovative potential, the corporation's press service reports. Alexander Morozov is in control of the development of the arms, munitions, and special-purpose chemicals industry, namely, licensing of design, production, and testing processes, operation and

August 29, 2015. The shares of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) will be listed in Quotation List A1 at MICEX starting August 31, 2015. This means MMK, as an issuer, meets all of the stock exchange transparency and corporate governance requirements. The company management feels this will attract more securities-trading investors to MMK. 'This could be very good for their liquidity,' says MMK Deputy DG for Finance & Economics Sergei Sulimov.

August 28, 2015. STM Service (a member enterprise of Sinara Transport Machines) acquired a license allowing the company to engage in educational activity. According to the Group’s press service, this will enable them to train the company staff in vocational fields, provide blue-collar workers with qualifications, and offer professional development training to management and white-collar workers. STM Service HR Director Alexei Zykin says the company is working on forty-five educational projects this year: twenty-one professional development seminars, twelve vocational training programs, and

August 28, 2015. Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) is currently getting its machining facilities upgraded ahead of schedule. According to the corporation’s press service, the idea is to ensure the amount of milling and turning metal treatment sufficient to meet the plant’s overall spare parts needs and thus eliminate the need to order some of those from outside suppliers. ‘The renovation of the facilities is part of Omsktransmash’s import replacement program. Experts from MTE Group Investment Company delivered ten new equipment units onto the plant, with eleven

August 28, 2015. The nominal monthly pay reached 38,805 RUR on average in Ural Federal District and 33,124 RUR in Russia on the whole in the first half of 2015; this was 5.3% more than in the first half of 2014. However, the actual wage dropped by 8.4%, Sverdlovskstat reports. Local companies currently owe their employees 8.2m RUR worth of delayed wages. Russia’s Retirement Fund reports preliminarily that a monthly pension payment amounted to 13,050 RUR on average in Ural Federal District and to 12,072 RUR in Russia on the whole, as of July 1, 2015. The actual pension was, however, 2.9%

August 28, 2015. Inflation went up by 8.7% in Ural Federal District in June 2015 compared with December 2014, Sverdlovskstat reports. Consumer prices rose by 11%, while the price of non-food items and that of services rose by 8.3% and 6.1%, respectively. In the first half of the year, locals spent 327.6 RUR in the service sector. This was, in physical volume, 2.4% less than a year earlier.

August 28, 2015. Two replicas of Russia’s first steam locomotive were made at Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant, the company press service reports. ‘A life-size replica, manufactured by the corporation’s head plant, is now located next to Uralvagonzavod Armored Vehicles Museum in Nizhniy Tagil. The second copy was presented to the city and installed at the entrance of the Park Inn by Radisson last week,’ the press service says. The spot next to the company museum has some special significance, since it is situated near the first stand with the 19th century railcars, including a platform

August 28, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) now makes new goods using its Mill 5000, the company press service reports. For one, the company can now make hot-rolled normalized sheets from P355NL2 steel in accordance with the STO ММК 297-2010 standards. This steel is used for making chemical-cargo truck tanks. Mill 5000 is also used for making hot-rolled sheets (8.0mm to 32.0mm thick) from 09G2S steel that meet GOST 19281-2014 standards and extra mechanical and operation requirements. These sheets are meant for making parts of pipelines.

August 27, 2015. Gas prices went up in Sverdlovsk Region because the ruble price of oil had increased, Gazpromneft-Ural’s press service informed UrBC. ‘It is generally believed that when global oil prices go down, Russian gasoline prices should follow suit. However, the government’s fiscal measures and the increased dollar exchange rate actually resulted in a 13% increase in Russia’s Urals oil in August. Since the raw material grew more expensive, retail gas prices are not likely to go down at the filling stations,’ the company press service explained. The price of AI 95 went up by 0.05 RUR

August 27, 2015. Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky paid a visit to Eterno, ChTPZ Group’s and Rosnano’s new joint venture meant for making stamp-welded pipeline parts. The plant is expected to create over 400 jobs and become a new taxpayer in the constituency, the Group’s press service reports. The Governor was accompanied by Deputy Governor Ruslan Gattarov, Chelyabinsk Region’s Economic Development Minister Tatiana Kuznetsova, Chelyabinsk Region’s Construction & Infrastructure Minister Viktor Tupikin, and a number of other officials. Visitors to the plant were shown all the

August 27, 2015. A cycling trip dedicated to this year’s 70th Victory Day anniversary took off in Murmansk; the trip is part of the 10th International Russia Arms Expo 2015 Exhibition coordinated by Uralvagonzavod Corporation. First, the participating cyclists, accompanied by Vice President and Chairman of Outsourcing Operators Commonwealth Andrei Shchepochkin, paid a visit to the Leningrad Heroic Defenders Memorial on August 21. The team and captain Alexander Razzhivin then traveled to the starting point of the trip in the Kola Peninsula, whose history is closely interwoven with that of the

August 27, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court pronounced Alapayevsk Chromite Mine insolvent. The company was set up in Alapayevsk, Sverdlovsk Region, in 2013, to produce iron ore. It was determined in the course of the court hearing that Chrome Resource, with 27,776,577 RUR in claims, was one of the company’s creditors. The investigation of the debtor’s financial situation made it clear that the crisis had been brought about by poor management and performance, excessive spending, and lack of efforts to reduce costs. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court thus declared Alapayevsk Chromite

August 27, 2015. Provided the ruble/dollar exchange rate remains more or less at the current level, the number of Sverdlovsk Region residents who will be able to afford a vacation abroad will shrink by 30% to 40%, Director of Natalie Tours Yekaterinburg branch Oleg Khiger told UrBC. ‘If things remain as they are, foreign travel market will sag by 30% to 40%. If the ruble keeps on growing weaker, the decrease might reach 50%. This means that the overall tourist market will only make up around a quarter of what it looked like a year earlier. Those who could afford to travel four times a year

August 26, 2015. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development is now selling portable POS terminals for chip-based and magnetic plastic cards as well as for proximity ones, the bank’s press service reports. The new terminal combines all the functions of the classical device (including transaction reports) with a powerful battery that lasts up to eight hours before you have to charge it again. The primary advantages are the device’s ergonomic design and compact parameters. There is no bulky receipt-printing part, so the terminal is best suited for the kinds of businesses that used to

August 26, 2015. People living in Ural Federal District are now considering moving to a different city in order to find a job more often than earlier, HeadHunter claims. The number of potential job migrants has gone up in nearly all of the district’s largest cities compared to last year. In Tyumen, the figure is up by 4%, and numbers rose by 8%, 10%, 12%, and 21% in Chelyabinsk, Khanty-Mansiysk, Kurgan, and Salekhard, respectively. Yekaterinburg proved the only exception to this trend: the number of people willing to move went down by 8%. The most desirable cities for job-seekers are still

August 26, 2015. MegaFon reports they are developing their Sverdlovsk Region network further; for one, the telecommunications provider introduced new stations in seventeen local towns and settlements between April and July to enhance connection quality and increase the speed of mobile Internet connection for 900,000 people, the provider reports. The new stations were installed in Nizhniy Tagil, Artemovsky, Alapayevsk, Berezovsky, Kamensk Uralsky, Zarechny, Novouralsk, Revda, Turinsk, Talitsa, Sredneuralsk, Troitsky, Malysheva, Svetly, Nikolo-Pavlovskoye, and (for the first time) in

August 26, 2015. The 5th Annual Junior Hockey League Championship took off at UVZ Corporation’s Ice Sports Palace in Nizhniy Tagil, the corporation, which acts as the tournament’s official partner, reports. This is the first time the Cup games began in Sverdlovsk Region. Matches will be played on three ice arenas (in Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Tagil, and Verkhnyaya Pyshma) on August 24-30. Eight teams from Sweden, Finland, the United States, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Russia, including Chaika from Nizhniy Novgorod and Avto from Yekaterinburg, are competing for the prize. Two games were