September 19, 2014. Car sales have been dropping much more drastically in big Russian cities (population over 1m) than in Saint Petersburg, which is actually the slowest-declining market, or in Moscow, which comes second in the race, Gazeta.ru reports. Not in one Russian city with the population of over 1m people did the new car sales go up in the six months of 2014. In January-June 2014, Saint Petersburg was No.1 in terms of car market growth compared with other large Russian cities. 66,300 passenger vehicles were sold there in the given period, which was only 0.2% less than in the six

September 18, 2014. MMK Trading House added a new, independent subdivision in Saint Petersburg to its subsidiary network. The subdivision used to be part of Intercos IV (a stamped components plant and a servicing center that is a member enterprise of MMK Group). ‘The Saint Petersburg subdivision was handed over to MMK Trading House within the framework of MMK Group member enterprises’ sales efficiency enhancement program,’ MMK says.

September 18, 2014. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil will start making metal sections of their own; this project will take 18 months to complete and up to three years to pay off, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘The new subdivision will be housed on the premises of the head plant’s railway carriage assembly department and will be fitted with the most advanced equipment and technologies. Relying on these will allow the plant to manufacture high quality metal sections from modern materials meant for the railway, road-building, agricultural, and other vehicles as

September 18, 2014. Uralcryomash (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) obtained a compliance certificate for its 15558C04 tank car meant for transportation and storage of liquid oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. The corporation’s press service says twenty such tank cars will be manufactured and delivered to Vostochny space airfield under the contract with Roscosmos. The first set of ten units will be shipped to customers by November 30, 2014. The second set is expected to be shipped in the first half of 2015. Uralcryomash is currently working on two large government contracts, and

September 18, 2014. A new flight from Yekaterinburg to Beijing will be launched at Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg this October, Sverdlovsk Region Minister for International and Foreign Economic Relations Andrei Sobolev announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. The flight will be operated by China’s Hainan Airlines. Man Chan, the Commercial Director at the company’s Moscow representation, says the price of a one-way ticket will come to 13,000 RUR. Starting from October 10, the Beijing-Yekaterinburg flight will be operated every Tuesday and Friday. The flight is offered in

September, 18, 2014. 425,000 sq m of economy class housing are expected to be built in Sverdlovsk Region by July 1, 2014, Sverdlovsk Region Prime Minister Denis Pasler announced at a videoconference meeting dedicated to the national project on Housing for Young Families; the meeting was chaired by Russia’s Construction Minister Mikhail Men. ‘Sverdlovsk Region Government decided on the core projects for the implementation of the national program: the projected Istoksky District in Yekaterinburg (150,000 sq m of housing), the Village of Canal in Pervouralsk (150,000 sq m), the Village of Golden

September 18, 2014. Sales of home appliances at M.Video’s Yekaterinburg stores stagnated in the second quarter of 2014. According to the chain store’s press secretary Yulia Zotova, in the second quarter, sales remained the same as in the second quarter of 2013. At the same time, these amounted to 81.8bn RUR (VAT included) in the first quarter of the year, which was 4.5% more than in the first half of 2013. The chain store is not planning for a price increase occasioned by the weakening ruble exchange rate in the nearest future. ‘The weakening of the ruble affected non-food items less than

September 18, 2014. Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development published a list of sanctions against Russia. The sanctions touch upon a Yekaterinburg-based enterprise, M.I. Kalinin Machine-Building Plant, Banki.ru reports. Dolgoprudny Scientific and Production Enterprise, Mytishchi Machine-Building Plant, V.V. Tikhomirov Scientific Research Institute, and Altair Marine Scientific Research Institute of Radio-electronics are also on the sanctions list. Besides, Canada’s sanctions involve Sberbank of Russia as well, alongside with certain officials: Deputy Defense Ministers

September 17, 2014. The list of Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant (KULZ, a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) has recently been updated, the corporation’s press service says. ‘This is important for those shareholders who are now registered under a different address or had a name change and also in cases when the holding was sold to a new owner. Under the existing legislation, it is the shareholder’s duty to make sure the documents stating their right to certain securities are issued properly: otherwise it is impossible to get any dividends,’ the company says. To get the list

September 17, 2014. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil hosted its traditional seminar on product quality enhancement, the corporation’s press service reports. The seminar was attended by representatives of railway carriage assembly, metallurgical, and mechanical assembly production departments, divisions, and administrations, as well as by workers of tool-making departments, non-standardized equipment production departments, and repair depots. Heads of quality control departments and production engineering offices and quality management system and business management

September 17, 2014. Head of Yekaterinburg Council Alexander Yakob informed Sverdlovsk Region Government of the plans relating to preparations for the Urals’ capital’s 300th anniversary. According to the city council’s press service, Yakob pointed out in his report that 23% of expenses were to be covered with funds from the national budget, 35% would be covered with funds from Sverdlovsk Region’s budget, 17% would be backed up by the city budget, and 25% of the money would flow in from non-budget sources. The planning period ranges between three and ten years and evolves along several

September 17, 2014. ChTPZ Group is taking part in the 21st International Research-to-Practice Conference Pipes 2014 that is held at the Russian Scientific Research Pipe Industry Institute in Chelyabinsk on September 16-18, the Group’s press service reports. On the first day of the conference, ChTPZ Group’s Managing Director Valentin Tazetdinov made a report on how the innovative potential of rolled stock manufacturers could be useful for the fuel and energy sector’s strategic projects. ‘Thanks to the current implementation of Russia’s major oil and gas projects and, therefore, thanks to

September 17, 2014. Bank24.ru’s banking license entitling the bank to perform banking transactions was annulled by order of the Bank of Russia, the regulatory body’s website states. The decision to use this weapon of last resort, namely, to annul the bank’s license, was taken by the Bank of Russia because the lending institution did not meet the federal laws regulating banking activity or the normative acts of the Bank of Russia; Bank24.ru had also repeatedly violated the requirements set out in Article 7 (excluding paragraph 3 of Article 7) of the Federal Law On Countering Money-Laundering

September 16, 2014. Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Corporation is adopting the car manufacturers' best practices to promote its TMV 2 railway carriage shunter on the Russian market. The corporation reports that, starting from September, Russian companies which would like to get more information about this new machine's technical and operational characteristics can borrow this TMV 2 for a two-week trial and actually use it on their production site. The machine comes with Uralvagonzavod Corporation's operation and maintenance team, whose members will train a

September 16, 2014. Employees of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ-Uraltrac, a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) took part in a track-and-field race dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the company's trade union, Uralvagonzavod Corporation's press service reports. About a hundred workers from the tractor plant's different divisions joined the race. There were quite a few young people at the start line. The event coordinators, who categorized contestants into age groups, even had to have the younger employees run in several installments, as they wouldn't fit

September 16, 2014. The Swedish company Ericsson supplied and set up all the equipment necessary for the LTE infrastructure for MOTIV Group, a telecommunications provider. The company also offered the carrier a solution aimed at improving the use of frequency content, that is, frequency refarming, and at upgrading MOTIV's existing GSM network, the telecommunications provider's press service reports. The GSM network could be refarmed within the 1,800 megahertz range, which will result in the more efficient use of the carrier's frequency resources and provide data transfer

September 16, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region Court supported the ruling pronounced by Yekaterinburg Leninsky District Court regarding the temporary closing of McDonald’s restaurant at 8E Vosmoye Marta St, the court's press service reports. However, McDonald’s now has the legal right to appeal to Leninsky Court asking for the early termination of the administrative punishment (that is, the temporary closing) since all the violations detected have been eliminated. The fast food chain outlet in Vosmoye Marta St was closed on August 26 because Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the

September 16, 2014. In August 2014, the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was given the 10th position in the rating of Russia's top fifty retail banks in terms of customers' estimates, the bank's press service reports. Under Prime Information Agency's methods, how much a bank is talked about in the social media is the most important criterion that indicates an interest customers have in this bank. The UBRD was on top of the list in terms of how many times it was referred to, since it was mentioned in the social media 2.5 times more often in August than in the

September 15, 2014. Sverdlovsk Region Government’s debt remained at 32.7bn RUR on September 1, 2014, the documents uploaded on the local Finance Ministry’s website indicate. The figure is actually the same as the one recorded on August 1, 2014. Incidentally, Sverdlovsk Region Finance Minister Galina Kulachenko announced recently that the constituency’s debt might grow bigger by the end of the year, while the budget deficit in 2015 will ‘reach its utmost limits’.

September 15, 2014. Polymetal bought a 100% stake in Severo-Kaluginskoye deposit in Sverdlovsk Region in the course of reorganizing Ural-Polymetal, a joint venture, the company’s official statement goes. Prior to the deal, Polymetal used to own a 49.99% shareholding in the JV. The company’s financial report stated that the asset had zero balance sheet value after it was written off in 2013 following a downfall in metal prices. ‘Under the terms of the reorganization agreement, Ural-Polymetal was divided and stopped operating, while its assets and liabilities were distributed among the