UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2020. NEYVA Bank’s executives believe the worst-case COVID-19 pandemic scenario will result in banks with high-risk lending policy incurring drastic losses. Vice Chair of the Board at NEYVA Bank Igor Koshmin told UrBC that how many more private borrowers were going to fail to make their loan repayments on time would depend directly on how fast and how badly the coronavirus pandemic unfolds. ‘Small enterprises and micro-businesses in the tertiary sector are already facing a dramatic drop in customer demand and therefore in revenues. This means they won’t have the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2020. The housing developer Brusnika now lets you choose and buy an apartment online, the company’s press service reports. ‘Customers can now look at the range of homes on offer, pick a particular apartment, and make a reservation using acquiring options. Online apartment shopping saves you time, and you no longer need to visit our offline office to do all the paperwork,’ the company says. You can find the entire catalog of floor plans, with all the details and current prices, photographs, and rendering samples at brusnika.ru. ‘These are all actual apartments

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2020. Ural Airlines will start operating flights from Kazan to Simferopol, Sochi, and Krasnodar in April. According to the airline’s press service, the plan is to keep the flights available through October. ‘The flights will be operated on Airbus planes in the following mode: Kazan-Simferopol-Kazan flights will get operated up to five times a week starting March 25; Kazan-Sochi-Kazan ones will get operated on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays starting April 18; Kazan-Krasnodar-Kazan ones will get operated on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 25, 2020. The telecom company MegaFon now lets you buy a SIM card and register it at AliExpress Russia’s Tmall or at the company’s online store (with free one-day delivery), the company’s press service reports. This is an opportunity to practice social distancing and avoid offline shops for those who have to self-isolate. The option is currently available to customers in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Krasnoyarsk, but the service will get launched in more cities, including the ones in the Urals, in the near future. ‘You can activate your SIM card using MegaFon’s

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, March 25, 2020. New insulators are being installed at RosSet’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems’ seven power substations in Chelyabinsk Region, FGC UES’s Ural division’s PR & media group reports. The insulators are being replaced at RosSet’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems’ transmission substations in Chelyabinsk Region, including the 500-kV Kozyrevo Substation, Kropachevo Substation, and Magnitogorskaya Substation. 612 new cylindrical post insulators will get installed within all the switching equipment. The replacements at the 500-kV Shagol

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 24, 2020. People working in Sverdlovsk Region’s finance sector earned the most last year (RUB 64,000 a month on average), followed by those employed in audit, law, architecture, science, and tech (RUB 56,000) and those in the communications industry and IT (RUB 55,000), RIA Novosti’s recent pay rating indicates. Sverdlovsk Region only came No. 32 in the national rating; according to the rating, in other Russian constituencies, these are the people in the mining industry, finance, and mental labor sector that earn the most. Sakhalin (top salaries at RUB 350,000+ a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 24, 2020. EVRAZ Holding announced it was taking extra steps to protect its workers and ensure uninterrupted production in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center’s PR Department reports. For one, the company employees no longer go on international trips. All workers coming back home from abroad (regardless of whether this was their time off or a business trip) will have to self-isolate on paid leave for two weeks. ‘Access to EVRAZ sites has been limited for foreign experts and contractors. All the preventive measures,

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, March 24, 2020. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Group went in high alert mode and set up an emergency response team (run by the company’s Director-General) to face the spread of COVID-19 on its sites. According to the Group’s press service, the company’s member enterprises are taking steps to prevent the spread of the virus and to reduce the risks of contracting the disease. ‘While the pandemic is still there, there will be no foreign trips and only limited trips inside the country. The company employees who have been to the COVID-19-contaminated locations have

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 24, 2020. Banking experts believe the interest rate charged on loans/offered on savings deposits might go up in the near future because of the growing lending and inflation risks. The Bank of Russia decided to keep the key rate at 6% p.a. at the end of last week (March 20). The CBR commented that the current weakening of the ruble was seen as a temporary pro-inflation factor brought about by plummeting oil prices, COVID-19 pandemic, and increased global economic uncertainty in the medium term. Now prior to the CBR’s March meeting, there was plenty of speculation

UrBC, Moscow, March 24, 2020. ChelPipe Group launched its own media platform Trubnik Online, with daily news updates on pipe production, pipe-manufacturing technologies, and metallurgical industry’s current trends, and some information about the Group’s employees and the Future of White-Coated Metallurgy In-Company Training Program, ChelPipe Group’s press service reports. ‘The launch of the media platform is just one example of how communication channels can evolve within the framework of the Group’s overall client-centered transformation; the idea is to put the client - a business partner, a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 23, 2020. Sverdlovsk Region-based businesses’ overall turnover rose by 13% in January-February 2020 compared with January-February 2019, Sverdlovskstat reports. The local food manufacturers’ turnover dropped by 31%, that of metallurgical enterprises by 5.2%, and that of drinks manufacturers by 3.6%. At the same time, building companies’ turnover went up by 35.3%, that of trading businesses by 33.4%, and that of logistics companies by 2.2%.

UrBC, Moscow, March 23, 2020. The conference for tech entrepreneurs Startup Village Livestream’20 will take place in a digital format at Skolkovo on May 21-22, 2020; the Open Innovations Startup Tour events in Ufa, Tomsk, and Krasnodar have been put off till September 2020. Startup Village Livestream’20 will prove the first large-scale virtual conference both for Skolkovo Innovation Center in particular and for Russia in general. Thanks to the event’s online format, the conference will be free and open to everyone. To access the program, you’ll need to sign up on the conference website.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 23, 2020. 85,595 consumer loans got issued to Sverdlovsk Region-based applicants in January-February 2020, which was 7.5% less than one year earlier (92,566 loans got issued in January-February 2019), the National Credit History Bureau’s report states. Sverdlovsk Region was still among the country’s top five constituencies in terms of the number of consumer loans issued in January-February 2020. Moscow (123,400 loans) was No.1, followed by Moscow Region (112,900), Krasnodar Territory (102,100), and the Republic of Bashkortostan (88,100). In Russia on the whole, the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 23, 2020. Director-General at ChelPipe Group’s pipe-manufacturing division Boris Kovalenkov and heads of Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ) and Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe) trade unions Sergei Oshurkov and Viktor Skryabin signed new Collective Agreements that will remain valid through 2023, ChelPipe Group’s press service reports. Under the terms of the agreements, the Group will direct more than RUB 680 million to its social welfare programs every year. ‘Meeting all of its social welfare obligations and continuous improvements in the workers’ living

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 23, 2020. Yekaterinburg’s housing management companies now have to use chlorine-based disinfectants when doing their regular cleaning routines; the step has been taken in order to prevent the possible spread of the novel coronavirus type COVID-19. This set of preventative measures was suggested to the town mayors by Sverdlovsk Region’s Ministry for Energy & Utilities, Yekaterinburg Council’s website states. District Akademicheskiy Housing Management Company was among the first to implement the new measures. A demonstration of the cleaning procedure was provided

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2020. The U.S. Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg reduced its visa operations temporarily/indefinitely in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic effective March 18, 2020, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow’s website states. ‘Visa appointments have been cancelled for the foreseeable future. We will resume routine visa services as soon as possible but are unable to provide a specific date at this time,’ the website states. The U.S. Consulate General in Yekaterinburg will provide emergency consular services only.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2020. 84 patients who possibly have coronavirus are now being examined at Yekaterinburg’s Clinic 40; there’s also one patient each in Kamensk-Uralsky and Novaya Lyalya, Vice Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Pavel Krekov said at a press briefing in Yekaterinburg today. ‘Some of them [the patients - Ed.] are only known to have come in contact with the diagnosed; they are healthy, they only came in contact with those who have the disease,’ Krekov said. When asked whether Vektor Lab in Novosibirsk (which is currently working on the new virus tests) diagnosed

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, March 20, 2020. The profits due to Mechel’s shareholders dropped by 81% in 2019, down to RUB 2.4 billion. According to the company’s official releases, Mechel’s (IAS-compliant) consolidated revenues declined by 5% last year on the year 2018 and reached RUB 296.6 billion. The company’s EBITDA dropped by 29% in 2019 against 2018 and came to RUB 53.4 billion. ‘The profits due to Mechel’s shareholders decreased by RUB 10.2 billion in 2019 compared with 2018 and amounted to RUB 2.4 billion. A drop in gross profits (-RUB 26.1 billion) caused by shrinking sales to third parties

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2020. Ural Airlines canceled a number of flights from Russia to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the company’s website states. The air carrier canceled flights from Ufa, Kazan, Krasnodar, Chelyabinsk, Moscow (Domodedovo), Nizhnevartovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Saint Petersburg, and Samara to Yerevan, Khujand, Dushanbe, Kulob, Bishkek, Osh, and Baku and back. However, Saint Petersburg-Dushanbe and Dushanbe-Saint Petersburg flights will still get operated once a week; flights from Moscow Region’s Zhukovsky Airport to Khujand, Dushanbe, and Bishkek will get

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 20, 2020. NEYVA Bank’s experts believe the CBR needs ‘a more stable picture’ to make any key rate-related decisions at tomorrow’s meeting. Now the Russian Central Bank’s Board of Directors is scheduled to meet on Friday, March 20; the meeting will dwell on the further key rate policy and on the country’s entire monetary and lending policy. Finance analysts believe the CBR’s key rate is highly likely to remain the same (6% p.a.) or to go up by 0.25% to 0.5%. Both the CBR and the Russian Government announced earlier that tax relief measures would be in order to