UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region directed 244.2bn RUR to Russia’s budget last year, which exceeded the figures for 2014 by 6.4%, or 14.7bn RUR, Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service reports. Most of the money (84.3%) came from taxpayers in the processing industries, production and distribution of water, natural gas, and electric power, the building industry, wholesale and retail trade, transportation and communication, real estate, services, and finance. The increase in the amount of taxes was the greatest (28%, or 10.838bn RUR) in the wholesale

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 11, 2016. The average price of a square meter of housing decreased by 5.8% on Yekaterinburg existing home market in the last quarter of 2015 against one year earlier, Domofond.ru and Avito Nedvizhimost report. The average per-square-meter price used to come to 78,500 RUR in the last quarter of 2014 and dropped down to 73,900 RUR one year later. Despite the declining prices, Yekaterinburg homes are still considerably more expensive than the Russian market’s average (63,200 RUR per m2). According to Avito’s findings, price fluctuations vary somewhat depending on

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 11, 2016. Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK and Gazprom signed an additional agreement relating to the price of large-diameter pipes the latter buys from the former, the company press service reports. The paper was signed by TMK Chair of the Board Dmitri Pumpyanski and Gazprom Chair of the Board Alexei Miller. The first such agreement was signed in 2012 and stated that the final price should be determined by raw metal price quotations, steel sheet and LDP price fluctuations, and the Russian industrial manufacturers’ price-change index. It was also stated that the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2016. The number of flu patients went up by 1.6 times in Sverdlovsk Region last year compared with the year 2014, head of Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal State Statistical Service Elena Kutina said at a press conference today. Also, the number of common cold and stomach bug patients rose by 9.5% and 3.4%, respectively. Some of Sverdlovsk Region’s towns have already reported they are faced with a common cold and flu epidemic; some of them are suffering from medicine shortage.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s inflation rate came to 1.1% in January 2016 compared with December 2015, head of Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal State Statistical Service Elena Kutina said at a press conference today. Prices rose by 4.7% in January compared with a month earlier; food items grew 1.3% more expensive, non-food items 0.8% more expensive. The price of sugar, eggs, milk, cottage cheese, and carrots and other vegetables rose by 3.8%, 1.6%, 2.3%, 1.5%, and 10.5%, respectively, last month. The overall price increase was estimated at 14.5% between

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2016. The supply on Yekaterinburg communal housing market (rooms in communal apartments) soared by nearly 40% in the last two months, N1.RU and E1.Nedvizhimost report. The number of rooms in communal apartments available for purchase came to 1,390 in November 2015 and to as much as 1,936 in late January 2016; the market supply reached its peak last December, when the 60% increase resulted in 2,282 rooms on offer. According to the real estate portals, most of these rooms are located in communal apartments and some 35% are those located in dormitory-type

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2016. 152,000 working-age people living in Sverdlovsk Region were out of jobs in December 2015, head of Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal State Statistical Service Elena Kutina said at a press conference today. 39,500 people registered with the local employment agencies as job-seekers; 34,100 of them were given the official ‘unemployed’ status, including the 7,100 people who were granted the status in December 2015 (+2,100 people on December 2014). Sverdlovsk Region’s labor market needed 22.6% fewer workers by last December compared with December

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant got fifteen certificates and seven declarations of compliance for twenty-two of its serially manufactured products and nine certificates for its newly designed railcar products last year in order to meet the existing legal technical requirements. According to the company press service, their bogie beams, automatic coupler yokes, 18-555 and 18-555-1 bogies, and 19-51-53-02 loose goods hoppers got safety requirements compliance certificates, for example. All in all, the company has got 144 of its railcar items

UrBC, Moscow, February 10, 2016. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is going to rely on a set of low-budget projects as one of the key ways to enhance its efficiency. The company intends to direct some 1bnRUR to these projects every year, MMK Business Development & Efficiency Management Director Maxim Lapin said at the annual summit on Russia’s metal and ore mining industry in Moscow. One of the world’s low-cost production leaders, MMK will keep on working to increase production efficiency in order to retain its share of the market, Lapin says. To achieve this goal, the company

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 9, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Director-General Oleg Sienko met the Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria to Russia Smaïl Allaua; their meeting was also attended by Algerian Embassy’s Economic Issues Counselor, the company press service reports. ‘This was a very warm-hearted meeting; the two parties both commented on the ways in which the two countries’ economies, and therefore their businesses, were similar, and on how many cooperation opportunities opened for them in the future,’ the press service

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 9, 2016. Yekaterinburg proved Russia’s second largest market for imported automobiles last year, the city council’s press service refers to the portal AvtoBusinessReview as stating. Yekaterinburg was responsible for 12.66% of all foreign car sales in Russia in 2015, which means every one in eight imported cars (35,500 units all in all) was sold there. Krasnodar (44,400 cars) was No.1, Nizhniy Novgorod (33,000 cars) proved the country’s third largest market, and Chelyabinsk, with its 19,600 cars, was the only other city in Ural Federal District on the list.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 9, 2016. The demand for cheaper copies of expensive brand watches has been on the rise in Yekaterinburg since the end of 2015, GoldTime informed UrBC. ‘The demand for copies of expensive brand watches has soared since late November; customers mostly ask for copies of Hublot and Tag Heuer varieties which can be had for 25,000 to 70,000 RUR. These are primarily mechanical men’s watches manufactured in either China or Belgium,’ GoldTime says. According to the company representative, they have reached an agreement with the Chinese watch-makers who are ready to

UrBC, Moscow, February 9, 2016. The overall number of foreign workers employed in Russia decreased by 1m people by the end of 2015, Kommersant refers to the Federal Migration Service as stating. The labor market analysts believe this has to do less with the devaluation of the ruble and more with shrinking job opportunities and dropping GDP. Olga Chudinovskikh from Population & Demographics Economy Lab at Moscow State University’s Department of Economics says the foreign worker outflow could have been much more drastic if ‘migrants, like most Russians, hadn’t hoped the national currency

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 9, 2016. The overall amount and number of past-due loan repayments and NPLs rose by 30% on the Russian lending market last year, National Credit History Bureau’s Deputy Director Vladimir Shikin told the radio channel Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei. ‘The past-due loan repayments kept growing last year both in nominal value and in percentage against the overall loan volume. This was because the risks Russian banks took in 2012 and 2013 by enthusiastically giving out loans started to take effect. Besides, people’s incomes shrank, so some of them can’t pay any longer,’

UrBC, Moscow, February 8, 2016. Rosalkogolregulirovaniye announced via the normative acts website that it is working on a draft bill to set minimal retail prices for 28%+ alcohol. ‘Setting a price minimum on alcohol products is one of the ways to fight the counterfeit and adulterated items market, eradicate illegal production, and raise excise duty payments,’ the department states. According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the actual price hasn’t been decided on yet. One rumored possibility is that a half-liter bottle might cost 190 RUR rather than the current 185 RUR. This price of a bottle of vodka

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2016. The number of people who registered as unemployed with Yekaterinburg Employment Center came to 6,154 people on February 1. The official unemployment rate was estimated at 0.85%, Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department reports. 1,672 people have applied to the local employment agencies this year so far, and 665 out of them have found a job by now. Sverdlovsk Region’s businesses placed job advertisements for 16,615 different vacancies as of February 1, 2016. 10,582 job openings (44.4%) were meant for foreign workers; 12,822 (63.7%) were in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2016. The share of pirated building materials on Russia’s and Sverdlovsk Region’s markets could be as high as 40%, Director of Sverdlovsk Region Building Businesses Union Yuri Chumerin announced at the developer’s forum Europe-Asia. According to Chumerin, the problem has grown really acute lately. ‘Some of the local producers who failed to compete fairly are starting to use low-quality materials or to make goods without the proper markings. These are mainly used for low-rise construction, but could also end up in some high-rise buildings. This is a truly grave

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2016. Yekaterinburg existing homes market supply has decreased by 10% in the last three months, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. ‘There are currently 10,400 apartments and 1,800 rooms in communal apartments on offer in our database; it takes four months on average to make a sale,’ the Chamber says. As of February 1, 2016, the average asking price stood at 70,087 RUR per m2. Prices decreased most in the city’s remotest districts, where the decrease was 2.1% in the last four weeks; the average per-square-meter price is currently 50,736 RUR. As for centrally

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 8, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant recently hosted a meeting of Nizhniy Tagil Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Gornozavodskoy Council, and Sverdlovsk Region Union of Industrialists & Entrepreneurs. According to the corporation’s press service, the attendees voted for delegates to the Russian Federation Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s 7th Convention (scheduled for March 1, 2016). The local chamber’s members voted unanimously for Ural Vagon Zavod’s CEO Vladimir Roshchupkin and President of Nizhiy Tagil CCI Boris Sokolov. The upcoming

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 5, 2016. 52% of Yekaterinburg residents who took part in a recent survey are confident that housing prices will keep going down for the time being, the online portal N1 reports. Only 13% of respondents believe prices will go up; 70% of people in this group say this should happen because of the devaluation of the ruble and the growing building materials prices. At the same time, 65% of people in the 52% group who insist prices will keep declining think the national currency’s exchange rate will actually cause the price decrease. 53% of respondents said they were