UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. Rosset’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems completed the first round of repairs at a 220-kilowatt electric main connecting Troitsk Power Station with PS 90, the company press service reports. This resulted in more reliable electric power supply to end users in Magnitogorsk, including metallurgical enterprises based there. The company energy engineers replaced over 60km of overhead ground-wire cables, checked the main supports, and adjusted their spark dischargers. This year, the company technicians intend to make three more Chelyabinsk

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) stopped charging its customers for keeping their bonds in securities accounts starting from April; these accounts are part of the customers’ brokerage service and personal investment account package. ‘Our customers used to have to pay 0.5% a year, so as you don’t have to deal with any commission any more, this automatically increases your bond profit. What is more, bonds still remain the low-risk investment market leader in terms of profit, whereas interest rates on deposits keep going down,’ says

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. The telecommunications provider MegaFon’s technicians checked Sverdlovsk Region’s primary highways for high-season traffic readiness and improved connection quality at popular routes, the company press service reports. There’s now a wider coverage area in Koltsov Tract, for example, with new facilities providing high-speed Internet connection and mobile connection throughout 100% of the highway’s length. This applies to the nearby Svetly District and the Ramada Hotel. Thanks to the recent improvements, good quality signal is also available on Yekaterinburg

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2017. EVRAZ Holding intends to supply 700,000,000 kg of rails to Russian Railways this year, including 240,000,000 kg of one-hundred-meter rails. This is 60% more than in the year 2016, the holding’s press service reports. The company has orders for ten different kinds of products, including thermally strengthened rails suitable for high-speed travel, rails suitable for extra-low temperatures, switch point rails, and counter rails. Russian Railways’ order is being fulfilled by EVRAZ Holding’s West Siberian Metallurgical Works and Nizhniy Tagil Integrated

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2017. Four students on ChTPZ Group’s Future of White Metallurgy Corporate Training Program are going to represent Sverdlovsk Region in the final round of the 5th national blue-collar job championship WorldSkills Russia, the company press service reports. WorldSkills Sverdlovsk Region round winners are to compete in the all-Russian round in three categories: NC Turning (Dmitri Shmarlovsky), Additive Technologies (Alexei Gilev), and Mechatronics (Vassily Kozyritsky and Alexei Mikhailov). These contestants made it through the national championship’s selection and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2017. The average per-square-meter price of apartments in buildings with a doorkeeper service declined by 4% in the last six months, N1.RU reports. The average asking price currently comes to 81,800 RUR per m2, whereas six months ago, the figure used to come to 85,100 RUR. At the same time, the average asking price on the existing home market is on the whole visibly lower and comes to 70,000 RUR per m2. The number of apartments with a doorkeeper service currently on offer rose by 11% in the last six months. The average asking price of such an apartment declined

UrBC, Moscow, April 25, 2017. The state-run consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has been detecting 24% more counterfeit goods and adulterated foods in different parts of the country, including Sverdlovsk Region, lately, Izvestia refer to the Russian Federation State Council’s report on the national consumer rights protection system as stating. According to the report, even though the recent surveillance reform resulted in a decrease in the number of checks aimed at ensuring compliance with technical regulations (-17% in 2016 against 2015), the overall volume of uncovered problems keeps

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2017. 62.446bn RUR were paid to Sverdlovsk Region’s consolidated budget in the first quarter of the year, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 18.5%, or 9.729bn RUR, Russia’s Federal Tax Service’s local division reports. Most of the funds came from payments made by the basic industries in the processing sector, the sector for the production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water, the wholesale and retail trade sector, the building industry, the transportation and communication sector, the real estate sector, and the tertiary

UrBC, Moscow, April 24, 2017. The American company Visa Inc.’s net profit dropped by 31.4% in the first half of the financial year 2016/2017 and amounted to $2.5bn, Prime refers to the company’s report as stating. The company’s diluted profit thus reached $1.04 per ordinary share against $1.51 one year earlier. Visa’s operating profit came to $8.938bn, which was 24.2% more than in the previous financial year. The company’s net profit shrank by nearly four times by the second quarter, with diluted profit at $0.18 per share (compared with $0.71 in the previous year’s second quarter) and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 24, 2017. The average asking price came to 66,937 RUR per m2 on Yekaterinburg existing home market on April 17, 2017. This is 1.7% less than at the start of the year and 3% less than one year earlier, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. The so-called bigger-space apartments lost their value most noticeably compared with the beginning of the year, with price decrease at 2.7%. Also, the price of standard-layout apartments in five-story buildings from the seventies and the eighties, as well as that of the so-called improved layout apartments declined by 1.8%. Studio

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 24, 2017. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) supplied 850,000,000 kf of steel pipes to its customers in the first quarter of the year, which was 3.7% less than in QIV’16 and 0.6% more than in QI’16, the company press service reports. The company sold 658,000,000 kg of seamless pipes in the first quarter of the year, which exceeded the figures for the previous quarter by 4% and those for one year earlier by 16.7% due to stable demand on the oil and gas companies’ part. Welded pipe shipments decreased by 230% against the previous quarter and by 31.8% against one year

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 24, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Omsktransmash took part in the all-Russian Baffle-Gate-Free Week, the company press service reports. This means the plant held a series of job counseling events for local school and college students on April 17-22. Students of Omsk State Technical University and high school students of science - 190 people altogether - came to take a tour of the plant. This was 2.5 times more than last October, for example. All the visitors were taken on a guided tour of the plant’s departments and divisions, followed for the first time by a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 24, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil recently held its first plant-wide strategy and business management championship, the company press service reports. The head plant’s blue-collar workers and managers of various levels all took part in the event. The championship was coordinated by the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy & Public Administration (RANEPA). ‘The goal is to help our managers develop such essential skills as strategic planning, long-term planning and plan implementation, and understanding of how a

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 24, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is getting the obsolete gas-filtering facilities at its electric steel-smelting department replaced with newer and more efficient units that will decrease the plant’s harmful atmospheric emissions dramatically. The emissions currently come from MMK’s DSPA 32, the THF steel-smelting vessel, the company reports. The replacements will cost 1.2bn RUR to go through with; the launch of the new units has been scheduled for July 2017, with an expected drop in emissions estimated at over 1,800,000 kg a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 21, 2017. EVRAZ Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) IT Directorate’s Senior Electric Equipment Engineer Alexei Raymov won the third prize in Glory to The Man of Labor, a professional skills contest coordinated in Ural Federal District. Raymov won in Mechatronics, the company press service reports. As part of his contest challenges, Raymov had to assemble, program, and launch a hydraulic pressure station meant for cylinder actuator control. The contestant completed all the wiring jobs and created the necessary programs. The unit was working perfectly

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 21, 2017. Ural Airlines are now offering a 30% discount on all of its flights, the air carrier’s press service reports. The offer only holds for four days (April 20-23, 2017), with tickets available on the company website www.uralairlines.com. Flights will be operated between May 1 and June 30, 2017; this is a limited offer. ‘This 30% discount gets added to the bonus points our Wings Club members collect. If you haven’t joined our loyalty program yet, you can always register at our company website and get the extra 500 bonus points that you can use up immediately

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 21, 2017. The telecommunications provider MegaFon Ural’s engineering made sure the network is ready for the spring floods, the company press service reports. ‘Since it has snowed so much since the start of the year, the floods might be 37% more massive in 2017 compared with the many years’ average amount. According to weather forecasts, the snow will start melting rapidly in the second half of the month, and people living in Karpinsk, Krasnoufimsk, Turinsk, Irbit, Talitsa, Turinskaya Sloboda, Baikalovsky, and other towns are at risk,’ the press service says. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 21, 2017. Thirty-eight Sverdlovsk Region-based organizations informed local employment centers that 5,539 people were leaving their jobs in January-Marchc 2017. This is more than twice last year’s number (2,678 people), Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department’s report states. Additionally, there are now more people working part-time in the Mid-Urals. Their number rose form 11,495 people on April 1, 2016 to 14,095 on April 1, 2017. 13,708 employees are currently working part time and 354 are faced with a downtime, and 33 people are on unpaid leaves. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 21, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region-based large enterprises proved the ones with the largest amount of loans among all businesses operating in Ural Federal District, Deputy Head of Russia’s Central Bank’s Ural Division Svetlana Furduy said at a conference on bond market trends in Yekaterinburg. According to Furduy, these companies’ gearing coefficient (editor’s note: loan dependence) came to 6.56 by the end of 2015. ‘This means the company borrows 6.56 RUR for every 1 RUR it owns. In 2014, the figure was 5.56’, Furduy said.

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 20, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) supplied 473,000,000 kg of metal goods to carmakers last year, which was 12.6% more than one year previously. ‘Automobile body sheets used to make 6% of MMK’s domestic market sales last year and made 6.5% of home market shipments this year. Given that, as Rosstat says, the Russian car-making market shrank by 7.4% in 2016, the increase of this company’s share of the market is even more impressive,’ the company says. This trend is particularly pronounced with foreign carmakers operating localized