UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 24, 2017. Some 10,500 workers from ChTPZ Group’s Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant went on continuous professional development programs last year; the Group allocated 27.5m RUR for the purpose, the company’s PR Department reports. 7,100 employees completed industrial and job safety courses and improved their qualifications both at the Group’s Training Center and in Russia’s leading vocational schools. For most students on the program, these were their new, second blue-collar qualifications, mainly those of a pipe-cutter, repair

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 24, 2017. Foster + Partners’ Partner Jeremy Kim and Associated Partner Martin Kehoe arrived in Yekaterinburg to check on the construction of Russian Copper Company’s new headquarters, the company press service reports. Russian Copper Company’s new HQ is Russia’s first building designed by Foster + Partners. Urals-based Premier Group is acting as the general contractor for the project. The three-tier underground parking lot and the first and the second floors (11m and 5m high, respectively) are by now ready, as is the facade module mockup. Foster + Partners

UrBC, Moscow, January 24, 2017. The telecommunications provider MegaFon’s shareholders approved of purchasing a controlling shareholding in mail.ru Group during an extraordinary general meeting on January 20, the company press service reports. There were 209,293,635 votes for and 10,765,598 votes against the deal, with 176,600 voters abstaining from voting. MegaFon intends to buy 63.8% of mail.ru Group’s voting shares (15.2% of the company’s authorized capital) from its controlling shareholder, Alisher Usmanov and partners’ USM Group. The transaction is estimated at $740m, with $640m to be

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2017. 567 companies with HQs in Sverdlovsk Region left the constituency and went elsewhere; twenty-one businesses were on government contracts, kartoteka.ru’s research findings indicate. The Mid-Urals are currently Russia’s No.7 in terms of business migration; Moscow (6,159 companies), Moscow Region (1,050), and Saint Petersburg (833) are the top three.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2017. Based on their cell phone use data, 54% of small and medium enterprises prefer to settle all the important issues in the afternoon, whereas 46% tend to do it in the morning, MegaFon’s press service reports. Now the Public Opinion Fund reports 37% of Russians describe themselves as ‘early birds’ and 45% as ‘owls’. Also, research has shown ‘owls’ are actually 18% more efficient at work than ‘early birds.’ MegaFon’s research findings indicate the number of outgoing calls made by business representatives in the Urals doubles after 2PM compared with the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2017. Russia’s leading pipe manufacturer and integrated solutions supplier for O&G companies Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ) reports its 2012 syndicated loans (80bn RUR all in all) were recently redeemed ahead of schedule, the plant’s press service says. The loans got refinanced through funds obtained from Bank VTB, Gazprombank, and Sberbank in December 2016. The new loans were issued to the plant on better terms, which meant ChTPZ was able to ease its financial burden and come up with a more convenient principal debt payout schedule. The guarantee

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2017. The popular science show Notafact filmed one of its episodes on the premises of EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK); the episode dwells on the Russian metallurgical industry’s history and development and on the life of Efim and Miron Cherepanov, engineers and inventors, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. The show host, actor Andrei Burkovsky, went to NTMK production site to look at how pig iron is made at the blast furnace department and to ask workers some questions about their job. He also got acquainted with the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 23, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation is holding Innovative Idea Contest for the first time this year, the company press service reports. Eligible to compete are workers who come up with a proposal that is innovative in technical, technological, process, or organizational terms. The first prize amounts to 300,000 RUR. ‘The goal is to stimulate and support our employees’ innovative activity in order to get new, greatly improved products and production technologies; to improve working conditions and management system; to make the company more competitive on the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant came up with a performance report for last year and looked at production goals for the year 2017, the company press service reports. Ural Vagon Zavod’s Executive Director Vladimir Roschupkin said ‘the team met all the goals for the year, with the best outcome possible in the given circumstances.’ ‘Despite the current economic hardships caused by the stagnating railcar market and rising metal goods prices (+3% to 33.5%), the plant managed to perform as well as in the record-setting year 2012. We made over 101bn

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2017. Chelyabinsk Forging Skills Center was set up at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ), the plant’s press service reports. The new joint venture was founded by Ural Vagon Zavod’s Traktorozavodsky Techno Park and KONAR Industrial Group under the aegis of Governor of Chelyabinsk Region. ‘KONAR Group supplies the operating funds, while Traktorozavodsky provides production sites and facilities. The new JV comprises all the four buildings of ChTZ forging division, with all their equipment, and now employs all the workers who performed

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2017. A project on the construction of a new bus terminal in Botanichesky District got approved in the course of recent public hearings in Yekaterinburg; Obschestvo Malysheva 73 will act as the developer for the project. The traffic hub will be put up in Krestinsky St-Schwarz St-Belinsky St (19,9 hectares altogether). The construction is expected to begin as soon as next year. The project was approved by Yekaterinburg Council Urban Planning Committee last summer. According to the project designers, the terminal building will be a three-story one, with

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2017. Russian Copper Company’s Kyshtym Copper Electrolysis Plant (KMEZ) won bronze in the annual Collective Agreement Contest held among Chelyabinsk Region-based companies with 1,000 to 2,000 employees, Russian Copper Company’s press service reports. ‘The contest is coordinated for local businesses and organizations by Chelyabinsk Region’s trilateral social/labor relations committee. The goal is to improve the way social/labor relations get regulated through collective agreements and to make the companies’ decision-making process more efficient. Companies’

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 20, 2017. The project on the construction of a set of new apartment buildings in Uktus District got approved in the course of recent public hearings in Yekaterinburg. Some 170,000 m2 worth of new housing will get put up along the embankment of Nizhneisetsky Pond. Ten hectares of land in Scherbakov St-Krestyanskaya St-Nizhneisetsky Pond-Dunitova Lane will be used to build five 12- to 32-story apartment buildings. There will also be a kindergarten for 350 children and a schools for 1,100 students. The infrastructure will provide for 2,125 underground and auto-silo

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2017. Ural Airlines keep introducing more flights operated from Moscow’s Zhukovsky Airport as part of Russia-Kazakhstan international relations program, the air carrier’s press service reports. Starting February 15, 2017, their passengers will be able to travel directly from Astana to Moscow and back. Departure time is 6:15 PM (Astana), arrival time is 6:55 PM (Moscow) and then 11:00 AM (Moscow) and 5:15P M (Astana), respectively. The new international flight will be operated three times a week (every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday). Ural Airlines now also

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2017. Ural Airlines offered its services to 6,467,188 people last year, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 19%, the air carrier’s press service reports. The airline operated 47,378 flights (up 11% on the year 2015), including 29,826 domestic flights, 8,985 flights to and from the CIS member states, and 8,567 international flights. The company’s passenger turnover reached 15,344,678,000 passenger-kilometers (up 17% on a year earlier). 471,361 people fly with Ural Airlines in December 2016 alone, and 3,652 flights, including 2,279 domestic ones,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2017. SKB-Bank was declared Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region’s Bank of The Year in 2016, the bank’s press service refers to BankInformService as saying. The bank’s products kept making it to the list of the most popular offers on the market throughout the year; SKB-Bank also contributed greatly to BankInformService’s website-based projects. The bank’s loan officers and consultants offered their advice online and proved readily available; also, SKB-Bank’s press service was quick to inform the public of all their news and helped write editorial reviews. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2017. Based on the International Labor Organization’s data-gathering methods, the number of those currently unemployed was estimated at 142,000 people in Sverdlovsk Region in Q’IV 16, Rosstat reports. In the Mid-Urals on the whole, unemployment rate comes to 6.2% at the moment (compared with 6.8%, or 152,500 people, in the last quarter of 2015).

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 19, 2017. Last year, an existing home could be had for 48,284 RUR per m2 on average on Sverdlovsk Region market, which was 4.5% less than one year previously, SRG’s research findings indicate. In absolute terms, the decrease amounted to 2,281 RUR per m2. As for Ural Federal District on the whole, prices declined most noticeably in Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous District (-7.9%) and Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous District (-6.2%). Things look best in Chelyabinsk Region (-3.1%) and Kurgan Region (-4.2%).

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 18, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation was given state guarantees (25.7bn RUR) to help refinance the company’s head plant’s current debts as well as those of its member enterprises ChTZ Uraltrac and Uraltransmash, the corporation’s press service reports. The state guarantee agreements were signed on December 30, 2016; it took the parties involved eight months to coordinate all the technicalities. The state guarantees were provided in part as security for the loans issued by Gazprombank to help ChTZ Uraltrac and Uraltransmash pay off their principal debt to Alfa

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 18, 2017. EVRAZ Holding’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (KGOK) keeps upgrading the facilities and equipment in use at its Severny mine, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. A new, 130-ton self-dumping truck was introduced at the mine in early January. This is the 30th vehicle the company bought as part of converting the mine to a new ore production and transportation scheme. ‘Switching the mine to a new, combined scheme is one of the ways to make it more productive. In addition to 130-ton BelAZ trucks, the company also purchased a number