UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 15, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil directed 203m RUR to charity projects last year, the corporation’s press service reports. Ural Vagon Zavod pays special attention to social welfare and charity issues and keeps allocating more funds for the purpose. As the company is also the city’s primary employer, its efforts improve the lives of its employees as well as contribute to the development of the entire city and Sverdlovsk Region on the whole. The plant invests considerable funds in vocational training and job counseling every

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region is the Russian federal constituency with the fifth largest number of active loans, National Bureau of Credit History reports. The overall loan amount reached 2.331bn RUR on January 1, 2016, including 1.209bn RUR worth of consumer loans and 1.122bn RUR worth of micro-financing agreements. According to the Bureau, the figures for Russia on the whole came to 69.2bn RUR at the start of the year (up 16.7% compared with October 2014), including 35.3bn RUR worth of consumer loans (31,500 RUR per loan on average) and 33.8bn RUR worth of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2016. SKB-Bank presented its special souvenir 100-ruble bill dedicated to the Republic of Crimea becoming part of the Russian Federation. Head of the bank’s Operational Department Larisa Larionova said this is the second souvenir banknote in Russian history so far. Prior to this, a souvenir coin dedicated to the Sochi Olympics was made available in 2014. The ‘Crimean’ bill has an unusual vertical layout; its two sides portray the city of Sebastopol and the Crimea as well as the memorial dedicated to the ships which were sunk in Sebastopol Bay, the Swallow’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2016. Russian Copper Company was issued a state-funded, preferential-terms loan by Roseksimbank (backed by the Industry & Trade Ministry) so that the business could introduce new technologies and improve its product quality, the company press service reports. A two-year credit line ($40m) was offered to the company in late 2015; the borrowed funds will be directed to the production of hi tech copper wire for the foreign markets. ‘This was a benchmark contract for both Roseksimbank and Russian Copper Company, so the bank decided to have some souvenirs made

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) and VUZ-Bank are going to hold a seminar on generational theory and personnel management in business for local employers on February 16, UBRD’s press service reports. Head of UBRD Training Center Ksenia Sozonova is going to be the main speaker at the event. Sozonova has been active in HR, business coaching, and management for over a decade now. She will dwell on the modern personnel management trends and efficient incentive and motivation mechanisms for employees belonging to different

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2016. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant/ChTZ (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) are now accepting orders from outside the corporation, the company press service reports. One of the customers based in Kurgan Region ordered caterpillar tracks for Chetra, a tractor made in Cheboksary. The first batch consisted of five sets of tracks, with three more sets to be delivered to customers in February. The plant is also making tracks for one of China’s largest road-building vehicle manufacturers. ‘The caterpillar tracks we make for tractors from Cheboksary

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, February 12, 2016. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and ChTPZ Group signed an agreement to determine the price of the hot-rolled metal sheets made at MMK’s Mill 5000 and delivered to ChTPZ Group’s Vysota 239 Department. The agreement was signed by MMK CEO Pavel Shilyaev and ChTPZ Group CEO Alexander Grubman, the two companies’ joint press release states. The idea is to determine the price of steel sheets on the basis of raw materials’ costs, production costs, and delivery costs. The agreement is valid through 2018. ‘ChTPZ Group and MMK are long-time partners, so,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 11, 2016. The average monthly pay quoted in Yekaterinburg-based employers’ job ads dropped by 1,000 RUR and came to 33,000 RUR last year, HeadHunter reports. Jobs in Top Management are paid the best (80,000 RUR a month), those in Raw Stuffs Development are second best-paid ones (60,000 RUR), and those in Construction & Real Estate are third best-paid ones (50,000 RUR). As for the bottom of the list, it appears that receptionists are offered the lowest monthly pay (25,000 RUR). ‘Remarkably, marketing and advertising experts and accountants are also paid less

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 11, 2016. Only 50% of agreements signed between Mid-Urals-based businesses and their foreign partners were fully implemented by January 1, 2016, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry representative in Yekaterinburg Alexander Kharlov said at a press conference. Kharlov said over 200 such contracts were signed last year, and only 49% were still valid. There are a number of reasons for this. ‘First of all, some of these contracts were signed before the enactment of FZ 4, the Federal Act on Coordination of Russian Federation Constituencies’ International & Foreign

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.