UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 4, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Plant 9 got two new stretching and rolling machines as part of its retooling program, the company press service reports. Once the equipment got delivered, the manufacturer’s representative arrived at the plant to get the mill assembled and to train the mill’s future operators. ‘The stretching and rolling machines are meant for forming and pre-bending of cylinder- and conically shaped shells made of rolled steel sheets. Since we make cylinders and casing coves out of steel sheets, such mills are essential,’ says Boris

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 3, 2016. EVRAZ Holding Ural’s EVRAZ Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) and EVRAZ Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (KGOK) recently held a professional skills contest among its managerial staff, the company press service reports. The contest was coordinated in several stages in the course of three months. The competition rounds aimed to reveal the contestants’ team leadership qualities, purposefulness, and systemic thinking. This was the first time that the two finalist teams - the ones from NTMK and KGOK - were both from EVRAZ

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 3, 2016. Workers of Russian Copper Company’s Kyshtym Copper Electrolysis Plant received state awards at the Governor of Chelyabinsk Region’s office on September 26, the company press service reports. Based on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky presented the For Merit to the Fatherland Medals (Class II) to smelter from the plant’s Copper-Smelting Department Alexander Kuklev and a long-service employee and former electrolysis operator at the Electrolysis Department Ivan Masyo for their work achievements,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 3, 2016. Russian Copper Company’s charity fund coordinated a special event for children and employees at Alenushka, a kindergarten for visually impaired children in Kyshtym, the company press service reports. The company helped coordinate two performances of a play called Khnyka & Gyka at the kindergarten. ‘This is a spectacular and unusual piece by Live Theater, a traveling musical theater run by the composer, playwright, and legendary ‘Grandfather of Ural Rock’ Alexander Pantykin. The play is special in that it presents live sound, live musical instruments,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 3, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Kamensk-Uralsky Foundry Plant (KULZ) started putting up a new boiler plant, the corporation’s press service reports. Just like the one currently in use, the future boiler plant will provide electric power for KULZ facilities, at a new level of technological excellence. ‘The new boiler plant only uses hot water rather than hot water and steam, which is much more energy efficient. This will result in considerable natural gas and electric power savings for the plant,’ says KULZ Senior Power Engineer Sergey Selishchev. According

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 3, 2016. Metcombank’s Akademichesky branch in Yekaterinburg turns six on September 30, the bank’s press service reports. ‘Metcombank is working closely with the locals and was the first bank to open a branch in this new district. Also, the bank has been offering a special loyalty card for Akademichesky residents for four years now,’ the press service says. Akademichesky Loyalty Card is a bank card that allows its holder to receive bonuses when paying their housing and phone bills, pay kindergarten fees and for school lunches commission-free, and get quite a few

UrBC, Moscow, September 30, 2016. The International Ski Federation (FIS) announced on its website that their Ski Jumping World Cup championship 2016/2017 won’t be held in Nizhniy Tagil, Sport Express reports. The city of Nizhniy Tagil was supposed to host women’s and men’s competition rounds on December 11-13. The federation, however, was unhappy with the organization of the event: the city appears to lack the necessary infrastructure and, besides, the previous championship’s prize money was not paid to the winners in time.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 30, 2016. Demand for ready-made businesses dropped by 17% on Yekaterinburg market in August 2016 compared with one year earlier (the country’s average decrease was 7%), the website Avito’s press service informs UrBC. Businesses in the tertiary sector sell best: such deals made up 30.5% of all market sales in August 2016 (-6.6% on a year earlier). Companies dealing in trade are the second most popular choice (their market share came to 22.7% (+2.1% on a year earlier), followed by catering (15.7%, up 2.4% on a year earlier), online sales (8.3%, up 2.1%),

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 30, 2016. Thirty-nine criminal lawsuits involving debt collectors allegedly applying illegitimate persuasion methods were instituted in Yekaterinburg by local public prosecution authorities, their press service reports. Following Sverdlovsk Region’s Public Prosecutor’s order, 362 pre-investigation check dossiers filed at Yekaterinburg police stations were looked into and inspected in September 2016. The checks all started after local citizens submitted their complaints regarding the illegitimate actions of micro-financing organizations’ and collection agencies’

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 30, 2016. Obshchestvo Malysheva 73, one of the Urals’ largest developers, reports they adopted a new brand name for some of their construction projects, the company press service reports. The company’s new housing projects will now be branded as Greenwich-Zhilaya Nedvizhimost. ‘Everyone knows about Greenwich Shopping Mall in Yekaterinburg, where it is located, and how to get there. Customers need to trust their developer and to understand clearly what they invest in. So an association with a well-known building is crucial. A developer which owns an asset as big

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 30, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation took part in the 12th annual RAEX-600 Forum in Moscow, the company press service reports. The forum was attended by high-profile President Administration officials, national ministries’ representatives, and Russia’s leading businesses’ owners and top managers. RAEX-600 Rating featuring the country’s largest companies was presented in the course of the forum’s plenary session. The ranking helps to look into performance and prospects of all the key economic sectors in the country. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation both made it to

UrBC, Moscow, September 29, 2016. Despite the inflation rate slowing down a bit in August, people’s factual pay kept going down for the second month in a row both in annual and month-by-month comparison terms, Finmarket refers to the Central Bank’s August reports as stating. Pay rise practices are growing increasingly more heterogeneous: for one, the difference in how salaries and wages get adjusted in the private and public sectors is now greater than ever. The public sector employees’ pay goes up most slowly and least noticeably. The unemployment rate declined from 5.6% in May and June down

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 29, 2016. The share of non-performing loans in the overall amount of consumer loans issued in Sverdlovsk Region now comes to 20.84%, National Credit History Bureau reports. All in all, the area’s consumer loan market rose by 36.75% in the course of this year. ‘Micro-financing policies vary from one federal constituency to another, depending on the specific risks that matter both to market players and to their customers. Micro-financing organizations operating in high-risk territories need to pay special attention to their risk procedures when considering

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 29, 2016. 21,835 new automobiles were sold in Yekaterinburg in January through August 2016, which was 24% less than one year earlier, Auto-Dealer-Yekaterinburg reports. Sales dropped by a quarter in August, with sales figures at 3,088 new cars. This is the second best month for the industry this year so far, only June sales (3,183 cars) looked better. Lada remains the market leader and keeps leaving its rivals behind. Renault is gradually outstripping Toyota as the most popular foreign brand. Additionally, Hyundai also made it to the list of top three best

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 29, 2016. Metcombank is now using National Credit History Bureau’s data on a particular loan applicant in its own decision-making system, the bank’s press service reports. The mathematical model that the bank’s scoring system is based upon was designed by the company FICO. Incorporating the Bureau’s data in their own procedures will protect the bank against unscrupulous borrowers, enhance retail lending efficiency, and provide better service for bona fide customers. ‘The Bureau’s industrial scoring test results proved a very efficient tool in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 29, 2016. Ural Vagon Zakod Corporation presented its transportable armored vehicle repair depot at the 2nd International ADEX 2016 Exhibition in Azerbaijan, the company press service reports. The company Director-General Oleg Sienko told Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev about their new product. President Aliyev looked at the portable wind machine that supplies electric power for the depot and went to the pavilion where a life-size sample of the corporation’s T-72 tank with a new fire control system is on display. ‘Our repair depot is a full-fledged,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) inspected 7,700 kg of fish in the first half of 2016; 2,200 kg, or 28.7% of these failed quality tests, the agency’s press service reports. For one, 500 kg of fish failed to comply with normative requirements and 1,600 kg did not have the right identification stamps; also, 50 kg of fish were adulterated. Rospotrebnadzor officers inspected, among other things, 1,900 cans of fish, of which 700 cans failed quality tests (including the 600 cans that did not comply with the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) inspected 16,300 kg of dairy foods in the first half of 2016; 2,500 kg, or 15.1% of these failed quality tests (compared with 24.6% in the first half of 2015), the agency’s press service reports. ‘The faulty items are the same ones as last year: these are the foods that fail to comply with the existing normative requirements, technological quality requirements, and adulteration checks,’ the press service says. Rospotrebnadzor picked and inspected 316 dairy food samples

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. Asking prices have decreased by 3.4% on Yekaterinburg existing home market since the start of the year. The figures kept going down in the first five months of the year and stopped declining by the beginning of summer, Ural Real Estate Chamber’s research findings indicate. As of September 26, 2016, the average per-square-meter asking price came to 68,359 RUR, which was 5.6% less than one year earlier and 10.9% less than in February 2015 (the price peak so far). The price decrease was most noticeable in the city’s remotest and least expensive locations,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. EVRAZ Cup football championship was held among children born in 2008 and 2009 in Nizhniy Tagil for the first time this year, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. The event came after a company championship involving the holding’s employees that is held in Kachkanar, Sverdlovsk Region, every year. Eight teams from three Sverdlovsk Region towns (Verkhnyaya Salda, Kachkanar, Nizhniy Tagil) competed against one another, with some twenty games held at Vysokogorets Stadium in the course of one day. In between the games, anyone could try to score with