UrBC, Chelyabinsk, March 29, 2018. Russia’s Industrial Development Foundation and South Urals Chamber of Commerce & Industry issued loans to six Chelyabinsk Region-based companies in 2017, the CCI’s press service reports. The loans fell within the RUR 20.5m to RUR 500m range. According to President of South Urals CCI Igor Aristov, sixty companies joined the chamber last year, which means the overall membership expanded to 920 businesses (including those pertaining to Miass and Magnitogorsk Chambers of Commerce & Industry). The majority of these (some 75%) are small and medium

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, March 29, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) keeps working on a new, large, up-to-date sintering plant that will be unique to Russia, the company press service reports. Builders embarked upon the preparatory stage of the project (area layout and getting the foundations ready for assembly) in December 2016. They are now busy assembling the structures. A power substation was the first facility to get built on the construction site. The substation is already connected to a high-voltage main and is ready to provide additional power supply onto the sintering

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 29, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region had RUR 337.8bn invested in the form of fixed capital expenditures, which fell below the previous year’s level by 3.6% (in comparable prices), Sverdlovskstat reports. 70.4% (RUR 237.9bn) of these funds got directed to large and medium enterprises operating in the area, which exceeded the figures for January-December 2016 by 4%. Most of the investments came from the industrial sector > 41.1%, or RUR 97.7bn.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 29, 2018. Only 17% of Sverdlovsk Region’s workforce expect their pay to go up this year, HeadHunter’s press service reports. 35% of companies are not planning for any changes in their current pay policy. 45% of those surveyed are not sure what their employers are up to, money wise. 3% of locally employed respondents said their management had actually cut down on their salary budgets. According to the survey participants, their pay is expected to decline because of the business going badly (49%), plummeting sales (26%), and a new KPI system (23%). Interestingly,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 29, 2018. The Urals-based home buyers invested RUR 7.4bn in building cooperatives in 2016-2017, Bank of Russia’s Ural Administration’s press service reports. In fact, their investments make up 47% of all the building cooperatives’ funds throughout Russia. ‘One advantage a building cooperative has over a mortgage is that you only pay slightly more for your home than you would when paying the full amount up front. Besides, you don’t need to collect all sorts of papers or prove your solvency in order to apply for this option. There are, however, some downsides to the