UrBC, Moscow, December 24, 2015. Over 50% of Russians felt their financial situation deteriorated this year, Finmarket refers to the Public Opinion Fund’s research findings as indicating. About 34% of respondents expect things to get worse in the upcoming year. They feel this could be due to probable price increases and inflation (19%) or insufficient salaries, wages, and pensions with no inflation rate adjustments (18%). Another 31% of those surveyed said they expected their income to remain the same as this year, and every one in five hopes things will get better. 13% of respondents said

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 24,2015. Food prices inflation rate was estimated at 15.2% in Sverdlovsk Region this year, Sverdlovskstat reports. Overall, the prices of consumer goods and services went up by 13.5%, with non-food items growing 14.5% more expensive and services growing 11.5% more expensive. The price of vegetable oil, tea, rice, frozen fish, apples, and vermicelli rose by 20%; that of sugar, salt, mutton, flour, and beef by 15%, that of milk by 10.2%, and that of vegetables went down by 0.6%.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 24, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s employees are going to take part in the international stand-up comedy contest KiViN 2016 in Sochi on January 11-25, the company press service reports. The company is sending the teams which proved the best in the corporate competitions this year: Yin Yang from Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant and Molodezhka from Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (both companies are the Group’s member enterprises). ‘This is the first time our stand-up comedy teams are entering an international arena. Taking part in an international event is a great opportunity for

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 24, 2015. Electromachine (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) coordinated an improvement proposals contest for this year among its workers. According to the company press service, the employees’ improvement proposals are all part of the lean production system and the idea is to involve each and every worker in the production improvement process. The company’s lean production committee considers applications on a monthly basis; 161 proposals were submitted this year, of which 99 were related to improvements in working conditions, 19 were related

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 24, 2015. A new metal treatment lab was recently opened at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Personnel Training Center. The lab is part of Ural Federal University’s Nizhniy Tagil-based Department of Machine-Building, the company press service reports. The symbolic red-ribbon-cutting ceremony was performed by the Center’s Director Sergei Vassilyev and Director of Ural Federal University Nizhniy Tagil Institute Vladimir Pegashkin. All the new equipment was purchased for the lab as part of the educational infrastructure development project. ‘A special department with

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, December 24, 2015. The international rating agency Moody’s promoted Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) from Ba3 to Ba2 and upped its PDR from Ba3-PD to Ba2-PD, with Positive rating outlook. This upgrade was first and foremost due to a considerable improvement in the company’s financial performance over the last two years and a decrease of the overall debt burden (debt/EBITDA ratio) down to 1.8x in late 2014 and down to 1.2x by the end of September 2015, which is the point at which Moody’s upgrades ratings of companies in the below 2.5x range. Despite the expected

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, December 24, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) shipped its 2,000,000th ton of metal goods to Uraltrubprom in December 2015. ‘The company will have delivered 255,000,000 kg of rolled metal goods to Uraltrubprom by the end of the year; these goods comprise most of MMK’s product range, including section pieces, hot- and cold-rolled items, and products with polymeric coating,’ the company press service says. Most of the products supplied are hot-rolled rolls used for making round, rectangular, and square steel, electrically welded pipes. The

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, December 24, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK signed an agreement on how the price the latter will have to pay for the former’s hot-rolled steel sheets will be determined. The paper was signed by MMK Director-General Pavel Shilyaev and TMK Director-General Alexander Shiryaev, the two companies’ joint press release states. The price formula is based on direct cost pricing, with such primary variables as the cost of metallurgical raw stuffs and materials and the cost of manufacturing a steel sheet. The formula also provides

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 23, 2015. The price of a square meter of an existing home has been dropping by 0.2% a week on Yekaterinburg housing market and came to 70,756 RUR this week (down 7.2% on the start of the year), Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. ‘This gradual downward trend has been there since February. Despite the dropping demand, home owners are unwilling to reduce their prices and so these have been declining only slowly. The market supply, on the other hand, is still at its all-time high: there are currently 11,400 apartments and 2,000 rooms in communal apartments in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 23, 2015. 207 personal bankruptcy applications have been submitted to Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court since the Personal Bankruptcy Act came into effect in Russia, the court’s Deputy Chair Alexander Kryukov said at a press conference. The new law came into force on October 1, 2105. ‘We’ve received 207 applications so far; 109 claims were filed by the debtors themselves, 98 were filed by creditors. 119 cases will get processed in court and 42 were put on hold for the time being for procedural reasons such as unpaid state duties or other unmade payments.

UrBC, Moscow, December 23, 2015. Rosstat reports Sverdlovsk Region’s unemployment rate reached 6.5% in November 2015 (149,900 people out of 2.322m people of working age). In Russia on the whole, the unemployment rate is reported at 5.8%; with 65.1% of population working. This is 4.2% (180,000 people) more jobless and 0.5% (380,000 people) fewer working citizens than in October 2015 and 10.7% (422,000 people) more jobless and 0.8% (540,000 people) fewer working citizens than in November 2014. A person out of job is on average 35.6 years old; 24.3% of the unemployed are in the under-25 age

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 23, 2015.Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant/KULZ adopted a new Collective Agreement between the company management and the workforce; the agreement had been drafted by the company trade union and is now expected to regulate the two parties’ relations in the next three years, the company press service reports. The document was signed by KULZ Director-General Anatoly Barabanov and Chair of the Trade Union Committee Alexandra Vinogradova. The agreement contains all the key principles and regulations from the earlier version, with changes in nine paragraphs which are

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 23, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation presented its latest developments at the Russia-Iran Trade & Industry Dialogue Exhibition, the company press service reports. One of the products is the new 12-581-01 gondola car designed specially for Iran as a life-size sample. The company DG Oleg Sienko talked about the corporation member enterprises’ great potential and their wide product range during the exhibition plenary session. He pointed out that Ural Vagon Zavod was known as one of the world’s largest rolling stock manufacturers (30,000 various railcars a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 22, 2015. The number of Sverdlovsk Region’s unemployed came to 31,608 people by December 1, 2015, which is almost 7,000 people more than a year earlier, the local Labor & Employment Department reports. The official unemployment rate was registered at 1.39% this December (against 1.08% in December 2015). The overall number of job-seekers came to 149,887 people by December 1, 2015, with the overall unemployment rate at 6.5%. 89 companies informed the local employment agencies of 12,129 upcoming redundancies between January and November 2015. Also,131 companies

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 22, 2015. 46,000 job patents for foreign workers were issued by Sverdlovsk Region authorities in the eleven months of 2015; this was 13,000 less than one year earlier, head of the Federal Migration Service’s local division Elena Otinova said at a press conference. ‘The figures mainly went down because of the economic crisis and the new, stricter standards of migration laws. Despite this negative trend, Sverdlovsk Region is doing noticeably better than our neighboring constituencies. All in all, the number of job migrants in the Mid-Urals declined only

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 22, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s Training Center, whose job is to offer dual-education training to meet the company’s blue-collar worker needs, launched its own website at www.bbmprof.ru, the company press service reports. ‘Making a presence on the Internet signifies another important step in the development of the Future of White Metallurgy, our corporate training program. The new site offers all the relevant information on all the types of training we provide and is expected to become the focal point of our student and social life,’ says the center’s head Andrei

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 22, 2015. Alexander Chaderin, a start-up technician for NC machines at LEPSE (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) won the first prize as Kirov Region’s Best Worker. According to the corporation’s press service, Chaderin’s photograph, along with those of 59 other best workers in their respective professional fields, will be displayed at Glory Alley in Kirov’s main square. ‘Alexander Chaderni has been working with NC machines for over three decades; he invests in his own continuous professional development, masters all the new and modern equipment,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 22, 2015. Nizhniy Tagil Council ruled that Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant had the best civil defense and emergency prevention practices in 2015. The company press service reports the winner’s certificate and the prize cup were given to the plant’s Senior Engineer Yuri Shangin by head of the city council’s Civil Defense Department Andrei Zhbanov and Deputy Mayor for Construction Konstantin Zakharov. The second prize went to Uralcryomash, also a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation. The awarding ceremony took place during the training drill

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 21, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region-based farmers’ overall cattle stock declined by 2.4%, down to 115,900 head of cattle, between November 2014 and November 2015, Sverdlovskstat reports. The number of cows at smaller private farms dropped by 11.7%, down to 26,500 head of cattle, while the entire private cattle count decreased by 8.5%, down to 59,000 head. Also, the number of pigs decreased by 12.7%, down to 6,900, while that of sheep and goats went down by 4.6%, down to 68,900. The number of sheep and goats in the agricultural enterprises dropped from 2,500 down to 1,100

UrBC, Moscow, December 21, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region-based employers owed their workers 7m RUR in unpaid wages and salaries as of December 1, 2015, Rosstat reports. In Russia on the whole, the debt amount came to 3.9bn RUR (up 395m RUR, or 11.3%, on November 2015). 37% are owed by employers in the processing sector, 29% by those in the construction industry, 9% by those in the sector for production and distribution of electric power, water, and natural gas, 7% by those in the transportation industry, 6% by those in the fossil production industry, and 5% by those in the agricultural, hunting,