UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 24, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s member enterprises in Nizhniy Tagil, Rubtsovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Volchansk were issued quality management system, environmental management system, and safety and healthcare management system certificates, the company press service reports. The SovAsk certificates were issued by Monolit-Cert and are valid for the next three years. This audit was one of the steps taken to improve the corporation’s management system. ‘A unified management system covers all the inter-connect systems and subsystems, including strategic,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 24, 2016. Ural Airlines is taking the rescued tigress Lola from Yekaterinburg to Simferopol on its U6 2931 flight today; the animal was supposed to have been put to sleep due to illness but was cured by Chelyabinsk animal rights activists, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘The airline provided a special plane with a heated and ventilated luggage section to ensure a safe and comfortable flight. It took us several days to get all things in order, as the consignor had to make a new cage that could fit into the luggage section,’ the press service says. This

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 24, 2016. Rosatom’s Ural Electrochemical Works (UEKhK) in Novouralsk won the local Taxpayer of the Year Contest, the company press service reports. The awarding ceremony took place during the reading of the budget message at Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly; Governor Evgeny Kuivashev presented the awards and a thank-you letter to the company Director-General Alexander Beloussov. Beloussov said the award was an acknowledgement of the plant’s noticeable contribution to Sverdlovsk Region’s socioeconomic development and of UEKhK’s financial stability. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 24, 2016. Federal SME Development Corporation and SKB-Bank signed an agreement to work together on lending programs for small and medium enterprises, the bank’s press service reports. The bank’s customers from among medium enterprises can now apply for funding at the interest rate of 9.6% a year; those from among small enterprises can apply for loans at a 10.6% annual interest rate. Businesses can spend this funding on fixed assets, production upgrades, new projects, and daily performance needs as long as the company operates in important sectors of economy such

UrBC, Moscow, October 24, 2016. Russians’ incomes dropped by 6.1% in the third quarter of the year compared with one year earlier; this is the lowest drop in the July-September period since 1999, lenta.ru refers to Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration’s research findings as indicating. ‘Even in the crisis year of 2009, people’s factual disposal incomes shrank somewhat less than this year,’ the Academy analysts say. Incomes declined by 3.3% against the year 2008 then. It is believed the ongoing downfall has to do with the pensions’ diminishing buying