UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2015. Yekaterinburg Council expects some 1m square meters worth of new housing to be commissioned by the end of the year, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Planning Alexander Vysokinskiy said at a press conference on June 26. ‘Developers are trying to avoid construction stoppages, since stopping the process comes at a higher cost than resuming it does,’ he explained. The official said sales were complicated on Yekaterinburg housing market at the moment, with government promising to back up only the new-home mortgages. Vysokinskiy stressed existing homes market needed

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2015. Students of Pervouralsk Metallurgical School got their vocational secondary education certificates within the framework of ChTPZ Group’s Future of White Metallurgy Program, the Group’s press service reports. Certificates were given to 69 school-leavers, two of whom - Irina Glukhova, who specializes in metal processing under pressure, and Ilya Ivanov, who won WorldSkills championships in Mechatronics, graduated with honors. These students are now qualified electricians, mechanics, experts in metal processing under pressure, and casters. Each of them has

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2015. ChTPZ Group took part in the All-Russian Industrial Personnel: Strategy 2030 Conference in Chelyabinsk on June 23-26, the company press service reports. The Group’s HR Director Svetlana Kuzminykh presented the company’s Future of White Metallurgy Corporate Training Program and gave a report on how to introduce a dual education system and what benefits to expect from it. ‘ChTPZ Group has plenty of experience in the field. We have been working on our Future of White Metallurgy Program in cooperation with Sverdlovsk Region Government and Pervouralsk

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2015. A school student from Krasnoyarsk was awarded Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s special prize within the framework of the national science and design project school contest, the corporation’s press service reports. The awarding ceremony took place at one of the State Duma’s assembly halls. Yuri Pavlov, an eighth-grader from Krasnoyarsk, won in the Cozy World category, where contestants presented inventions that help to make this world a more comfortable place. Yuri presented his Hovercraft Rescue Robot. His proposal is to introduce remotely controlled rescue

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2015. A photo exhibition called To Remember Is to Live opened at Uralvagonzavod Corporation/UVZ Museum. Glory Square in Nizhniy Tagil serves as the central focus of all the photographs on display, the corporation’s press service reports. The better part of this photo archive was collected and digitalized by Nikolai Mitin. There are fifty photographs in the exhibition: works by Mashinostroitel news photographers Vladimir Mikheyenko and Lyudmila Ivanova from various time periods and by head of local Tourist Photographer Club Vladimir Mitin. ‘The exhibition opens in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2015. Two young managers from LEPSE (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) were awarded certificates under the president managerial training program, the corporation’s press service reports. The solemn awarding ceremony took place at Kirov Region Government’s office. The certificates were given out by Head of Kirov Region Government Administration Alexander Kutergin, who stressed that in the seventeen years from the moment it started, the program proved an effective instrument of government recruitment policy. 41 workers from Kirov Region were given

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2015. ChTPZ Group Training Center looked into performance results of its Ural Engineering School Program that has been offered at local schools throughout the year, the Group’s press service reports. ‘The goal is to offer school students job orientation advice and enhance their awareness of the options they have, especially in terms of vocational education offered on our Future of White Metallurgy Project,’ the press service says. For one, guided tours of the training center and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant’s production departments proved very popular. Around a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2015. The average price per square meter on Yekaterinburg existing homes market came to 74,178 RUR on June 22. This is 0.9% less than four weeks ago and 2.7% less than at the beginning of the year, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. Prices went down in nearly all of the market segments expect for the centrally located apartments, for which prices rose by 0.6% in the course of last month. Homes in the city’s most expensive area are now sold for 99,973 RUR per m2, whereas those in the least expensive locations on the outskirts are now 2.7% cheaper and are offered

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 26, 2015. Gosexpertiza, a state-run expert body, approved of Yekaterinburg Central Stadium reconstruction project. The reconstruction will have to be completed in time for the World Cup 2018, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s press service refers to the constituency’s First Deputy Building & Infrastructure Development Minister Alexei Krupkin as saying. Krupkin said the project documentation and the engineering survey findings for the sports arena got a full approval. ‘The project documentation has actually been approved, which means Sport Engineering, the customer

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works launched its photo exhibition “Steel Heart of Russia” on 25 June 2015 at the Russian Federation’s Trade Mission. The exhibition includes over 30 photographs by recognised Magnitogorsk photographers, and has toured Brussels, Luxembourg and Malta. Built in the early 1930s in the Southern Urals, the mill became one an icon of Soviet Russia’s industrialisation. Western countries dubbed the mill a «Russian miracle» – it was built almost by hand in record time. By the end of the 1930s it was the largest metallurgic enterprise not only in the country, but also in

UrBC, Moscow, June 25, 2015. Russia’s Central Bank expects zero growth on the ruble lending market this year, RIA Novosti refers to the bank’s Financial Stability Director Sergey Moiseyev as saying. ‘If we look at how many ruble loans get issued to businesses, the overall volume tends to rise by 5.5% a year; however, compared to the situation in 2008 and 2009, corporate loan books appear to have a negative balance in annual terms,’ he said at a press conference.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 25, 2015. Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) experts subjected 670 food samples from Japanese cuisine restaurants (sushi, sushi rolls, salads, and other foods) to lab tests; 106 samples (15.6%) turned out unsatisfactory in terms of microbiological parameters, the agency’s Sverdlovsk Region division reports. In 2014, 1,797 such samples were tested altogether, with 302 samples (16.8%) turning out unsatisfactory. This was the worst result among all the priority food items. The most common problems are trading in foods that do not meet normative quality

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 25, 2015. The number of the unemployed in Sverdlovsk Region has by now exceeded the number of people living in certain local towns. According to the Labor & Employment Department, there are currently 32,743 people without jobs in the Mid-Urals. The overall unemployment rate thus stands at 6.6% (up 5% on June 1, 2014). Incidentally, some of Sverdlovsk Region-based towns have a comparable number of inhabitants: the populations of Zarechny, Kushva, and Bogdanovitch, for example, come to 27,000, 29,000, and 29,000 people, respectively. Russia’s Labor Minister Maxim

UrBC, Moscow, June 25, 2015. ChTPZ Group is presenting its White Well Project and its latest equipment for artificial oil lift and well repair at MIOGE 2015, the oil and gas exhibition, in Moscow’s Expocenter on June 23-26. The White Well Project, implemented jointly by the Group’s pipe-manufacturing and oil equipment maintenance divisions, stands for helping companies increase their oil production outputs at difficult wells through prolonging the equipment’s time between overhauls. This can be achieved with the help of customized choice of pipe materials and supplying equipment pieces in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 25, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation/UVZ signed a number of cooperation agreements with Russian colleges, with the aim of setting up vocational chairs there, at Sverdlovsk Region Union of Industrialists & Entrepreneurs Vocational Education & Labor Supply Committee meeting, the company press service reports. At the start of the meeting, UVZ Executive Director Vladimir Roschupkin and Director of G.V. Plekhanov Russian Economic University’s Ural branch Alla Golovina signed an agreement to set up an integrated Chair for Economics & Management. A similar

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 24, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly deputies adopted the bill on the constituency’s budget implementation in 2014, yet voiced their dissatisfaction with the implementation quality. Based on Sverdlovsk Region Finance Minister Galina Kulachenko’s report, the budget received 164,583,872,000 RUR in revenues last year, whereas budget expenses amounted to 184,438,774,000 RUR. Budget deficit thus stood at 19,854,902,000 RUR. Corporate income tax revenues went down by 5.6% and reached 43.7bn RUR; excise duty payments decreased by 5.7%, down to 12.5bn RUR. 65bn

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 24, 2015. The main focus of the upcoming Innoprom 2015 Exhibition in Yekaterinburg will be on urban technologies in the field of construction, social projects, and business, deputy mayor of Yekaterinburg Sergey Tushin said at a press conference recently. ‘This year, the design of the stands will be only complementary to the content. Every stand traditionally serves as a multi-functional site suitable for holding up to four different events at once. This is a forum zone for round table discussions, a presentation venue, a site for holding negotiations and landing

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, June 24, 2015. On June 19, Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant/ChTPZ BOD member Alexander Filatov made his report on government support measures in the non-energy export sector at a panel discussion at Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, ChTPZ Group’s press service reports. Expanding its export segment is currently one of the Group’s top priorities. The company intends to double its export of steel pipes within five years, up to 500,000,000 kg a year by 2019. The Group’s O &G equipment maintenance division, Rimera, plans to raise its export sales by 5% to 10% a

UrBC, Omsk, June 24, 2015. Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) completed the first stage of its project to convert its furnaces, drying stoves, and drying stands to using natural gas rather than wet fuel. The project began this year: in June, all the necessary pipelines were assembled and a number of drying stoves underwent startup and commissioning jobs, the corporation’s press service reports. ‘The use of natural gas rather than reduced fuel oil for this part of the production process results in better quality of spare parts treatment. Switching to gas will

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 24, 2015. The budget for the military vehicles exhibition Russia Arms EXPO 2015 will come to between 150 and 160m RUR, Director of the event coordinator Business Dialogue Anatoly Kitsura said at a press conference. ‘The money will be directed to the exhibition, the stands, transfer services, catering, business agendas, and the necessary building jobs on the site. Besides, some extra funds will be contributed by the exponents themselves,’ Kitsura said. According to the businessman, 116 companies from Russia, Italy, Belarus, Korea, Turkey, and other countries have