UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 30, 2015. Ural Federal District’s industrial production index dropped by 2% in January-September 2015 compared with January-September 2014, Sverdlovskstat reports. The IPI decreased by 2.5% in the fossil fuels and minerals production sector and by 1.5% in the sector for production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water. The only sector to have a growing IPI (+0.6%) was the processing industry. Ural Federal District-based companies’ overall turnover came to 13.3 trillion RUR in January-September 2015, which exceeded the figures for a year

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 30, 2015. The overall amount of deposits placed by customers with Ural Federal District-based banks went up by 28.8% between January and September 2015 (by 26.4% in nominal terms), Deposit Insurance Agency State Corporation reports. The overall amount of insured deposits reached 557.4bn RUR on October 1, 2015. That of deposit accounts opened at banks by private customers registered as sole traders rose by 24.3% (up to 8.5bnRUR) in nine months of the year so far. On the whole, the banks’ deposit portfolio increased unevenly from a 7.4% rise in January to 1% one in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 30, 2015. Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK joined the Corporate Charity Leaders 2015 Project, the company press service reports. TMK was assigned the 10th position in the overall rating and a winner’s certificate in the Corporate Charity Concept & Strategy category. Corporate Charity Leaders is a project run jointly by the non-profit organization Donors’ Forum, the newspaper Vedomosti, and the auditing body PwC. The idea is to bring into the limelight the best corporate charity programs and to draw the attention of general public, business community

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 30, 2015. Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod) bought two NC milling machines, the corporation’s press service reports. The three-axis milling unit was installed at Mechanical Assembly Department 41 where aircraft wheel parts are manufactured. These parts require high-precision treatment that only a numerically controlled machine can provide. For the time being, the machine is only used for making brake cylinders of a certain type, but in the near future more parts of different types of aircraft wheels will be made here as well.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 30, 2015. Three employees of Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) were given the Russian Federation Defense Ministry’s higher-order awards, the company press service reports. The awards were given to Valeriy Voloshin, Sergei Chukhin, and Anatoly Permyakov for their great professional skills, many years of conscientious labor, and impressive personal contribution to developments in the Russian Armed Forces’ defense capacity. Head of the Special Electric Equipment Systems Department Valeriy Voloshin was awarded ‘For Labor Valor’ Medal

UrBC, Moscow, November 27, 2015. Russian customs points are screening 100% of cargo arriving from Turkey starting from November 26, Interfax reports. This 100% screening works both ways and applies to goods getting exported from Russia to Turkey as well. ‘It is reported off the record that a cargo manifest that says ‘Turkey’ in Fields 2, 11, 15, 16, or 34 will automatically be turned down at the customs point. The same sanctions apply to cargo transported by a Turkish freight forwarder,’ companies working with Smolensk Customs informed their employees on November 26. A Russian fighter plane

UrBC, Moscow, November 27, 2015. The average amount of unsecured bad debt within Russia’s banking sector rose from 50,000 RUR to 99,500 RUR per borrower in the course of the year, Banki.ru refers to the collecting agency Sequoia Credit Consolidation as stating. In the collectors’ terminology, bad debts are those which haven’t been repaid at least partially in over 900 days. According to Dmitri Monastyrshin of Promsvyazbank, the increase in the average debt amount has to do with the population’s shrinking income. Rosstat reports people’s actual disposable income is dropping because of high

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 27, 2015. This year so far, Sverdlovsk Region’s police officers prevented 509 attempts of forged document use, acting head of District Police & Juvenile Services Department Dmitri Shilovskikh said at a press conference. ‘Forgery is one of the types of fraud we have to deal with; this is frequently done with third-party car insurance policies, for example. We’ve come across 509 forged documents this year so far, 344 of which were found in Yekaterinburg,’ Shilovskikh said. Shilovskikh added criminal action was taken in all of these cases.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 27, 2015. The price of land allotments in Yekaterinburg dropped by 17% compared with the start of the year, N1.RU and E1.Nedvizhimost’s research findings indicate. The market supply went up by nearly 2.5 times in the meantime and reached its all-time peak in November 2015, despite the expected seasonal downfall. The two estate portals report the number of land allotments for sale in Yekaterinburg and the rest of Sverdlovsk Region came to 2,000 last November, increased dramatically in early 2015 and, predictably, reached a peak at the beginning of summer. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 27, 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin went to Ural Vagon Zavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s head plant on his visit to Nizhniy Tagil on November 25. According to the company press service, Putin looked at some prospective special-purpose developments at Ural Transport Machine-Building Design Office/UKBTM (the corporation’s member enterprise) as well as met with some of the engineers and chaired a private conference. UKBTM’s Director-General and Senior Designer Andrei Terlikov presented the plant’s modern Armata-based vehicles to the President.

UrBC, Moscow, November 26, 2015. Russia’s Counter-Extremism Committee suggests imposing more controls over the ways SIM cards get sold and purchased as a counter-terrorist activity measure; the plan is to have the SIM card application procedure changed as well, RIA Novosti reports. The committee proposes, among other things, that legislative amendments be made for foreigners to be able to sign a contract with a mobile carrier for a limited time period only, that is, only for the time of their legitimate stay in Russia; correspondingly, a contract can only be renewed if a non-citizen’s

UrBC, Moscow, November 26, 2015. Tour operators are already cancelling bookings for Turkey. For one, Nathalie Tours is no longer selling any tours there, company president Vladimir Vorobiev told TASS. The management feels that the current political situation ‘might turn into the worst case scenario’. Biblio Globus also announced in a press release that no trips to Turkey were offered starting from November 24. Starting November 25, Pegas Touristik and Tez Tour will follow suit. In the meantime, Tez Tour’s last group of tourists for this year is expected to fly back home (that is, from Turkey

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 26, 2015. Yekaterinburg authorities are planning to put up new schools for 6,700 children, Deputy Mayor for Capital Construction & Land Use Sergei Myamin said in his interview to Open Studio. Yekaterinburg (Channel 41). ‘Kindergartens and schools are a more pressing issue for Yekaterinburg than for any other city in Sverdlovsk Region: the constituency’s capital is the only place that is growing quickly. The city’s population increases by 10,000 to 15,000 people every year, 4,000 to 5,000 of whom are children who thus need some twenty kindergartens and four or

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 26, 2015. The overall tax, fine, and state fund duty debts of Sverdlovsk Region-based taxpayers went up by 3.216bn RUR (or 11.6%) by early November and amounted to 31.4bn RUR, the local division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service reports. ‘The deadline for property tax payments for 2014, which is October 1, 2015, is the primary factor affecting the overall debt dynamics,’ the division says. Sverdlovsk Region-based private individuals’ overall property tax debts came to 4.587bn RUR in early November, including 2.509bn RUR worth of unpaid transport taxes (up 16.7% on

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 26, 2015. The price of a standard double hotel room in Russia came to 4,830 RUR per night on average this November; this is 8% cheaper than in October 2015 and 1% cheaper than in November 2014. In Yekaterinburg, however, this month’s price is actually 7% higher than one month ago and now comes to 4,140 RUR per night, trivago.ru reports. According to the current trivago hotel price index (tHPI), hotel prices went up the most in Kazan and Suzdal, that is, by 11% compared with October 2015; the current price of a night’s stay in a standard double room now comes to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 25, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s residents owe their natural gas supplier Gazex 170m RUR in housing bills as of November 1, 2015, the company press service says. The debt amount is at its highest in Nizhniy Tagil, whose residents owe their supplier over 25m RUR. Home owners in Kamensk Uralsky owe the company over 23m RUR, those living in Aramil owe it some 19.5m RUR, and those living in Pervouralsk owe it 18.5m RUR. Residents of Polevskoy, Sysert, Revda, Serov, Sukhoi Log, and Bogdanovich owe their gas supplier 10.6m RUR, 9.9m RUR, 8.2m RUR, 7.3m RUR, 6.3m RUR, and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 25, 2015. 947,000 m2 of new housing got commissioned in Yekaterinburg this year, including 134,000 m2 worth of private houses, 19,000 m2 worth of low-rise apartment buildings, and 794,000 m2 worth of regular apartment buildings. Deputy Mayor for Capital Construction & Land Use Sergei Myamin said in his interview to Open Studio. Yekaterinburg (Channel 41) that over 2.5m m2 worth of new housing had been put up in Yekaterinburg yearly for the last two years, which was in sharp contrast to the low figures recorded in the earlier years. ‘Yekaterinburg manages

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, November 25, 2015. Students of South Ural State University were awarded Ya.P. Osadchiy Fund scholarships at Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant today. The solemn ceremony traditionally took place at Vysota 239, one of the plant’s actual production sites. ‘ChTPZ Group assigns Yakov Osadchiy Fund scholarships to most gifted students for the 15th time this year. Most of the fellows are employed with our company already, they can be found in the most important production departments, including Vysota 239. ChTPZ now hosts another facility which, like Vysota 239, lives by the rules of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 25, 2015. New welding machinery supplied by Ural Scientific & Technological Complex (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) was installed at the corporation’s head plant recently. ‘The equipment is used for simultaneous CO2 welding of two seams at sidewall framings of 12-132 and 12-196 gondola cars. With the help of this unique machine, it will take only one operator to perform quite a few tasks, as it only takes nine to ten minutes to get a piece welded. The main idea is to eliminate manual labor and human factor (which could affect quality)

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 25, 2015. UVZ Logistic (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) handed a number of its unique railcars to Russian Railways’ O&M subsidiary, the company press service reports. ‘Under the agreement that the parties signed, Russian Railways will provide freighters with railcars for improved economic outcome. UVZ Logistic Director-General Dmitri Yeremeyev feels this change will help introduce new traffic regulation mechanisms to strike a balance between the price of renting railcars available and the cost of shipment for the consignor; Russian