UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s member enterprises are organizing office parties and children’s parties for their employees this week. New Year shows at all of the company’s clubs, special contests and chocolate presents are meant to create the holiday feeling for workers and their children, the company press service reports. This year, Santa is going to give 700 boxes of chocolates and toy monkeys to children of people working at Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant. As for the very young children, Santa and his granddaughter Snegurochka will see them in their

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region proved to be a constituency with the third largest number of local borrowers, the National Credit History Bureau reports. The overall number of borrowers actually decreased by 11.2% over the eleven months of 2015 and dropped to 1.317m people by December 1 (compared with 1.483m on January 1). Moscow, predictably, hosts the greatest number of loan-takers (1.851 people, -11.3% on the start of the year), and Moscow Region (1.522m people, -11.5% on the start of the year) comes second. It is reported the average loan amount went up by 6.8%

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2015. The average price of a square meter of an existing home grew 6% less expensive (in rubles) and 24.6% less expensive (in US dollars) on Yekaterinburg housing market this December compared with one year earlier, E1.RU and E1.Nedvizhimost report. A year ago, the average housing price came to 77,000 RUR ($1,380) per m2 on average. The figures reached their peak in February (78,000 RUR per m2) in ruble terms and in April in dollar terms ($1,500 per m2). By the end of the year, prices dropped to 72,000 RUR and $1,040 per m2 on average (down 6% and 25%,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities uncovered over 1,250 attempts at violation of entrepreneurs’ rights this year, their press service reports. Additionally, 177 protests were issued, 7 claims were placed with courts, and 310 reports were filed, resulting in 133 people facing disciplinary liability, 43 people facing administrative liability, and 42 people getting warrants against violating the law. The authorities also kept working with personal queries from businesspeople based in Sverdlovsk Region towns and cities: Aramil, Alapayevsk,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 30, 2015. This year, Yekaterinburg’s retail trade turnover rose by 12.5bn RUR, the city council’s press service reports. According to Mayor Alexander Yakob, the overall figure came to 720bn RUR in 2015 (compared with 707.5bn RUR in 2014). ‘Our retail trade figures keep growing from year to year. This year’s figures were actually record-setting, only Moscow and Saint Petersburg did better,’ Yakob said. He added the services sector was also growing noticeably.