August 18, 2015. Uralvagonzavov Cup’s final games are over in Sverdlovsk Region, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. The cup went to Nizhniy Tagil’s Sputnik Hockey Club, which beat Chelmet from Chelyabinsk 2:1, making up for being defeated by the latter a year earlier. The bronze went to Bars. Awards were given out by Director of Sputnik Hockey Club Takhir Daukayev. Uralvagonzavod Cup is a pre-season championship. The Supreme Hockey League’s regular championship games will start in September. Sputnik’s first match (against Molot-Prikamye) will take place in Perm, and the

August 18, 2015. A Yekaterinburg-based confectionery formerly known as SladCo recently assumed its original name, Konfi, Sergey Gusev, Slavyanka Confectionery Chairman of the Board, told UrBC in an interview. ‘We set up a new company in Yekaterinburg. SladCo remains as a brand, but the business will operate under its original name Konfi. This business is now completely local,’ Gusev said. According to Gusev, prior to the recent sale the company used to be registered in Saint Petersburg, where its former proprietor, Orkla Brands (a daughter enterprise of Norwegian Orkla), was situated. Orlka

August 18, 2015. Deutsche Bank awarded SKB-Bank to praise the latter for the great efficiency of handling foreign currency payment transfers, the bank’s press service reports. According to Deutsche Bank’s estimates, an overwhelming amount of the money orders that were handled automatically by the bank in 2014 came from SKB-Bank. Experts from SKB-Bank’s interbank payments and correspondent account department make sure all the foreign currency transfers comply with international standards, which actually allows for their automatic processing. This, in its turn, both reduces the commission a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region directed 110bn RUR to the Russian Federation budgetary system in the first half of 2015, which was 15% (14.5bn RUR) more than a year earlier, Federal Tax Service refers to Deputy Head of the Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division Marina Ryabova as stating in her report. 36bn RUR went to the federal budget (up 26%, or 7.4bn RUR, on a year earlier). Sverdlovsk Region’s consolidated budget received 74bn RUR (up 10.6%, or 7bn RUR, on a year earlier). 31bn RUR came from VAT payments, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 22.5%, or

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2015. The amount of past-due loan payments owed to banks by Sverdlovsk Region-based borrowers came to 27.758bn RUR in the first half of the year and now makes up 7.5% of the overall loan amount to be repaid, the National Collection Service reports. The greatest shares of these non-payments relate to cash loans (15.1%) and credit cards (14.8%), with smaller shares of POS loans (6.4%), car loans (4.6%), and mortgages (1.3%). Sverdlovsk Region’s consolidated loan book has gone down by 4.98% since the beginning of the year and now amounts to 368.8bn RUR. ‘On the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2015. In Yekaterinburg, the average price of a liter of gasoline went up from 34.23 RUR to 34.38 RUR between August 3 and August 9, Rosstat reports. As of August 9, AI 92 could be had, on average, for 33.44 RUR per liter, AI 95 for 35.64 RUR per liter, and diesel fuel for 34.65 RUR per liter. In fact, gas prices increased in seventy Russian constituency capitals last week; prices went up by 1% or more in five constituencies; for one, the increase was as big as 2.3% in Makhachkala.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2015. ChTPZ Group’s pipe-manufacturing member enterprises Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant and Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant supplied their customers with 1,070,000,000 kg of steel pipes in the first half of 2015, which was 21.6% more than a year earlier. The increase had to do with more domestic market orders, the company press service reports. The Group sold its customers 537,800,000 kg of welded pipes (+43.5% on the first half of 2014), including 514,000,000 kg of large-diameter pipes (+44% on a year earlier). The increased demand came from the oil and energy

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2015. Ural Railcar-Building Design Office (a member enterprise of UVZ Corporation) will now repair APE 95 UVZ elastomeric shock absorbers, the company press service reports. The T2 grade absorbers get mounted onto tank cars meant for transportation of valuable or hazardous cargo (GOST 19433-88 Class 3, 4, 5, 8, 9) and onto railcars whose weight exceeds 120,000 kg and main-line locomotives. Both the absorbers and the repair specifications were developed by the design office itself. Until quite recently, the absorbers had to be repaired at the corporation’s head

UrBC, Moscow, August 14, 2015. Russia's advertising market shrank by 16% in the first half of 2015 compared with a year earlier and thus came down to 138bn RUR, Interfax refers to Russia's Communication Agencies Association (AKAR) as stating. The AKAR reports TV advertising, the market's largest segment, is down by 22%, down to 61.1bn RUR to 61.6bn RUR. The number of TV commercials dropped by 21% (down to 60.2bn RUR to 60.7bn RUR) on terrestrial channels and by 52% (down to 920m RUR) on non-terrestrial ones. In the meantime, the online advertising segment increased by 10%, up

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 14, 2015. Sugar grew 2.1% more expensive in Sverdlovsk Region last week (August 4-10), which was the biggest food price increase in the area, Sverdlovskstat reports. In addition to this, the price of sunflower seed oil went up by 0.3%, that of eggs and sweets by 0.2%, and those of caramel, beef, canned meat, bread, sour cream, milk, and sausage went up by 0.1%. Chicken and pork prices remained the same as the week before. At the same time, the prices of lamb, frozen fish, cooked sausage, sterilized milk, cheeses, pasta, and salt went down by 0.1% to 0.2%. The price

UrBC, Moscow, August 14, 2015. On average, Ural Federal District's grocery shoppers spent 455 RUR at a supermarket at a time, which was 3% less than a year earlier, Romir reports. In the country on the whole, the figure is up by 3.2%, up to 559 RUR (the same as last month). Average basket's worth increased by 1.3% in cities with the population of over 1m people, by 1% in cities with 500,000 to 1m residents, and remained the same as a few months ago in cities with under 500,000 people. When broken down by supermarket size, the figures still don't look very different from several

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, August 14, 2015. ChTPZ Group's warehouses in Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, and Novokuznetsk proved one of the top hundred successful suppliers in 2014. This rating was created by B2B Center, an e-trading platform, based on transaction records of their 200,000 registered suppliers, the Group's press service reports. In order to get on the Top100 list, a supplier had to win a noticeable part of the tenders they placed their bids for. The company had to take part in least ten purchasing auctions coordinated by at least three different customers. The

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 14, 2015. Coordinators of the 10th Russia Arms Expo are carrying the Urals‘ Steel Beasts campaign, with a number of cars in exhibition colors and with images of RAE mascots on them cruising Moscow streets for everyone to see, the exhibition's official website states. The ‘beasts‘ will be seen in the streets of the capital on August 13-22. Those willing to join need to make a picturesque and captivating shot of a car and put it on Instagram under #RAE2015. This offer is open for everyone, with ten best photographs to be selected on August 24-25. The winner will

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 13, 2015. Ural Federal District‘s power stations produced 148.4bn kilowatt-hours of electric power between January and July 2015, which was 0.3% less than a year earlier, the local subsidiary of United Power Systems/SO UPS reports. 148.8bn kilowatt-hours of electric power were consumed, down 0.9% on a year earlier. At the same time, electric power output actually increased by 1.6% (up to 19.8bn kilowatt-hours) in July 2015 compared with July 2014.

UrBC, Moscow, August 13, 2015. Russia‘s Central Bank appointed the Deposit Insurance Agency Life Group‘s temporary trustee in bankruptcy; the Group comprises Express Volga Bank, VUZ-Bank, Poidem, and Gazenergobank, the Central Bank's website states. The banks' shareholders and managements will not have any powers until the trustee in bankruptcy has been through with the proceedings. 'The provisional trustee‘s primary task is to investigate the banks' financial situation. Following this assessment, which should provide figures as to the actual worth of assets and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 13, 2015. Yekaterinburg Business Development Center is launching its second business incubator within the framework of its program on the development and support of SMEs in the city of Yekaterinburg in 2014-2016, the Center's press service reports. The new incubator can be found on the premises of Sverdlovsk Film Studio at 71 Malyshev St; the place comprises two fifty-people open space offices and a car parking lot. Just like the first incubator at 9A Pushkin St, the new one has workplaces with office furniture, landline connection and Internet access, with

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 13, 2015. 92% of Yekaterinburg residents are willing to consider working from home, findings of a research conducted by E1.Rabota and Zarplata.ru indicate. Being able to do one's own planning and scheduling is seen as the main advantage, according to 66% of respondents; 50% rated the possibility of working right from home as their No.1 plus, 43% of those surveyed pointed to the possibility of working for several different employers at the same time, and every one in four (26%) said being able to spend more time with the family was the best thing about this

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 13, 2015. Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant/KULZ (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) made 51m RUR of net profit in the first half of 2015; this was 2% more than a year earlier, the corporation's press service reports. The company also exceeded its aviation-purpose goods and castings output targets, thus increasing output by 7% compared with last year. Sales revenues were 78m RUR short of what had been expected, however, even though the figures were actually 11m RUR more than a year earlier. For this reason, the plant had to slow down on its

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, August 13, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works’ (MMK) net profit (calculated in accordance with the IAS) rose by nearly six times in the first half of 2015 compared to a year earlier and amounted to$468m, the company reports. The company’s revenues shrank by 22.8%, down to $3.2m. The decrease mainly had to do with the average price of 1,000 kg of steel going down by 16.1%, down to $94. The EBITDA came to $963m in the six months of 2015, up 39% on a year earlier, with a 30.5% EBITDA margin. ‘We expect the demand for our produce to go up in early

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, August 13, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is launching an automated operative scheduling system at the plant. The system was introduced at the company’s Sheet-Rolling Department 5 in July 2015 and by now has arrived to all of the major production divisions, including Mill 5000 and cold-roll Mill 2000, MMK reports. The automated system means company can react quickly to changes in its orders book and ensure efficient cooperation among all of MMK production facilities. Considerable savings result from strict compliance with production