UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 15, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s investment potential grew 0.055% worse this year compared with a year earlier, the rating agency RAEX reports. The constituency’s share in the country’s overall potential is reported to come to 2.596%. According to the agency’s research findings, the federal constituencies’ investments risks have been growing stronger for two years now. This year’s integral risk figures rose by 2.9% (compared with 1.3% a year earlier), constituency financial risk figures rose by 6.2% compared with a year earlier, and economic risk figures rose by

UrBC, Moscow, December 15, 2015. The Japanese corporation Toshiba no longer intends to sell its TV sets and household appliances in Russia, Kommersant reports. ‘We are leaving the Russian market completely; all of our supply actually got sold as early as last October, when consumer goods sales reached their peak. This market turned out to be very hard to operate on, since the Korean companies Samsung and LG have a 70% share of it,’ says Toshiba RUS Director-General Hiroaki Tezuka. It is reported Toshiba plans to focus on B2B contracts. Now Toshiba Corporation runs two companies in Russia,

UrBC, Moscow, December 14, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation proved one of the world’s top hundred arms manufacturers in the year 2014, Prime refers to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute as reporting. The Russian company was given the 61st position in the rating, with the maximum (72.5%) increase in sales that year. Some other Russian manufacturers made it to the rating as well, for example, High-Precision Complexes (the 39th place) and RTI Systems (the 91st place). Almaz-Antey, with its 23% increase in sales, was in the 11th place in the rating, OAK was given the 14th

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 14, 2015. Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) has been testing its new amphibious tractor PTS4 for a week; the vehicle is meant for production on a serial scale. The corporation’s press service reports the company experts and representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry had to check the machine’s actual technical characteristics (its speed on water and on soil surfaces and cargo capacity) against its declared specifications. The tests were run in an artificial pond near Omsk: to pass the test, the tractor had to move 200km on

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 14, 2015. LEPSE (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) took on fifty new workers, the company press service reports. The young newcomers gave ‘a pledge of allegiance’ of sorts to LEPSE Director-General Gennady Mamayev, who acted on the entire company’s behalf. ‘I am positive that you will support our plant’s great traditions. Young people currently make up a third of our team, with many of them joining the management on a regular basis. I wish you professional and personal fulfillment at our plant and hope this place becomes your second home and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 14, 2015. The average rent amount on Yekaterinburg housing market dropped by 11% (down to 18,600 RUR a month) in the course of one year, N1.RU and E1.Nedvizhimost’s research findings indicate. One could find a place for 21,000 RUR on average a year ago, but now one-bedroom apartments are 12% cheaper, studio apartments are 11% cheaper, and two-bedroom apartments are 7% cheaper than before. Rents were at their lowest in May and June, but went up a little with the start of the school and academic year. The downward trend was typical of all parts of the city, with

UrBC, Moscow, December 14, 2015. The number of Russia’s poor came to 20.3m people in January-October 2015, which was 2.3m more than a year earlier, Rosstat reports. Poverty rate was thus estimated at 12.4% (17.9m people) in the third quarter of 2015 (against 11.5%, or 16.6m in Q3’14), at 14% (20.1m people) in the second quarter (against 12.1%, or 17.4m in Q2’14), and at 15.9% (22.9m) in the first quarter (against 13.8%, or 19.8m in Q1’14). Poverty rate fluctuations are strikingly seasonal – the figures reach their peak in the first three months of the year and drop to their minimum in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 14, 2015. BN800 reactor-based power generating unit 4 at Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station was plugged in and produced its first portion of electric power for the Urals’ energy system on December 10, the station’s PR Department reports. First, the reactor’s performance had to be brought to 25% of its nominal capacity for the purpose; the К-800-130/3000 turbine was set to 3,000 rpm. Following the unit and the power supply system’s synchronization, the reactor’s performance was then brought to 35% of its nominal capacity. The power generating unit entered the

UrBC, Moscow, December 11, 2015. Russian end consumers’ unpaid electricity and heating bills amounted to more than 850bn RUR by early October, Deputy Energy Minister Vyacheslav Kravchenko said in his interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta. ‘This is a lot of money that, if it were paid, could be directed to complete renovation of the entire infrastructure, and some of it would even still be left for social welfare projects,’ the official says. Now Russia’s Deputy Construction & Housing Services Minister Andrei Chibis said in August that the unpaid housing and utility bills came to more than 1

UrBC, Moscow, December 11, 2015. The overall number of cars imported to Russia between January and October 2015 decreased by 52% (down to 288,000 units) compared with a year earlier, Avtostat reports. The number of cars imported from the CIS member states came to 11,700, that of cars imported from the rest of the world came to 276,300. The automobiles’ consolidated cost amounted to $5.38bn. The imported truck market shrank even more: only 16,700 trucks were imported into the country, down 69.5% on a year earlier. Their total cost was estimated at $672.1m. As for the export figures, these

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 11, 2015. Local doctors’ pay went down by 1.5% between October 2014 and October 2015, Sverdlovskstat reports. Salaries in the healthcare sector decreased by 0.2% compared with the start of the year, with the average monthly pay dropping down to 29,453 RUR. Last year, the average pay figures stood at over 30,000 RUR a month. In the meantime, salaries in the scientific research sector and in the academia also declined by 3.1%, while those in the construction sector declined by 1.3% over the last twelve months.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 11, 2015. The number of vacancies on Yekaterinburg job market went down by 15% in November 2015 compared with a year earlier, while the number of CVs rose by 21%, Superjob.ru reports. The number of vacancies in the logistics and maintenance sector decreased by 30% compared with a year earlier, that in the law sector by 27%. At the same time, there are now 28% more job openings in marketing and advertising and 13% more in the purchasing sector. Also, the number of vacancies rose by 17% in the insurance sector, by 14% in the raw stuffs industry, and by 10% in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 11, 2015. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) signed a dealership agreement with Peru-based Vostok-Sur Export-Import. The company will be in charge of supplying tractors to Peru, the corporation’s press service reports. The contract was signed in Peru. Under the agreement, the dealer will now promote Chelyabinsk vehicles on the Peruvian market and provide after-sale services. Bulldozers and tractors will be shipped to South Africa in sea containers, which will cut delivery costs and guarantee the tractors arrive safe

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, December 10, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won the Priority 2015 Award, the national import substitution prize. The event coordinators commented on MMK’s great contribution to development and production of competitive metal goods and successful substitution of imported products on the home market, the company reports. MMK has been getting its new steel types certified by car-makers and expanding its share of this market for a few years now. As a result, despite the automobile industry’s problems, MMK proved this year’s leading

UrBC, Moscow, December 10, 2015. The number of Russian tour operators present on the international market dropped by 69% this year, Interfax refers to President of the Association of Russian Tour Operators Dmitri Gorin as saying. ‘There were 2,050 such companies before the recession broke out; there are only 650 left now, down 69% on a year earlier, not to mention the number of travel agents, which is declining as well,’ Gorin said. Gorin expects the market to keep shrinking next year as well. ‘Under the best-case scenario, some 500 companies will survive, under the worst-case one, there will

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 10, 2015. New homes currently under construction in Yekaterinburg amount to 2.496m m2 altogether, which is 12.6% less than in the last quarter of 2014, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. Economy class homes amount to 1.368m m2 all in all (down 26% on a year earlier), comfort plus homes amount to 1.063m m2 (+15%), business class homes amount to 21,000 m2 (+126%), and elite homes amount to 15,000 m2 (the same as last year). The chamber’s analysts feel the decrease in the overall amount of new housing has to do with the customers’ deteriorating paying capacity and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 10, 2015. As of December 7, 2015, the average price of a square meter of an apartment for sale on Yekaterinburg existing homes market came to 71,029 RUR, down 6.8% on a year earlier, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. The market supply has remained at its all-time high for four months now: there are currently over 11,500 apartments and over 2,000 rooms in communal apartments for sale at the chamber’s database alone. Because of the low demand, it still takes quite a while – four to five and a half months – to make a sale. Prices dropped most for apartments in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 10, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil coordinated its annual defense and emergencies drill contest to sum up this year. According to the corporation’s press service, the event’s main goal is improvements in the quality of personnel protection at the company’s member enterprises. ‘Ural Vagon Zavod’s Civil Defense & Emergencies Administration looked into how efficient the enterprises’ civil defense measures are and how well the staff are instructed in how to act in a civil or military emergency. They also checked how ready the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 10, 2015. Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant hosted this year’s last meeting of the job competence committee which is in charge of giving appraisals to managers as well as white- and blue-collar workers after one year in a particular job position, the company press service reports. The committee checked whether the employees’ qualifications and skills were relevant for their job position. The appraisal procedure involved workers from the Maintenance Department: the leading expert, senior engineers, and the legal counsel. The department’s head Sergei Kaisin provided

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 9, 2015. 16,098 mortgages were issued to customers by Sverdlovsk Region-based banks between January and September 2015, Deputy Chair of Ural Bankers’ Union Evgeniy Bolotin said at a press conference. ‘The number of mortgage loans dropped by 32.1% compared with a year earlier, their overall amount decreased by 36.7%. The figure came to 25.8bn RUR altogether,’ Bolotin said. According to Bolotin, the average mortgage amount also shrank considerably this year.