October 15, 2013. At the moment, 30,231 residents of Sverdlovsk Region can't leave the country because of their debts. Their total debt from all sorts of court enforcement proceedings accumulates to nearly 15bn RUR, Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Service of Court Officers reports. More than 9,000 people out of the total number of those who can't travel abroad owe money on their children's allowance; they owe their children a total of 1,862,896,000 RUR. Since the beginning of the year, 982 debtors have paid off 261.828m RUR worth of their debts because they needed to

October 15, 2013. Vysota 239 Department of Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant made its large-diameter pipe 'anniversary' 200,000th large-diameter pipe (LDP), the company's press service reports. 'The LDP with the diameter of 1,420mm with both the internal and external corrosion-resistant coating and a blue brand strip that stands for steel strength grade K60 has been shipped to ChTPZ Group's key customer, Gazprom, along with the rest of the order,' the message states. 'Vysota 239 was launched in July 2010, this was the first facility within the so-called white

October 15, 2013. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation got a special prize in the Corporate Purchases Leaders Contest: it was awarded in the Special Category for its contribution to the development and promotion of competitive purchasing activity and making its purchasing policy efficient, the corporation's press service reports. 'In my view, this contest is a chance for the companies to show their potential and to demonstrate their development. This is a stimulus for further growth, for moving forward, for improving one's purchasing performance. The Corporate

October 15, 2013. Head of Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprise Experimental Plant and the South Korean company Samyoung Plant Co., Ltd talked about the possibility of setting up a joint venture for the production of crushing equipment in Rezh, Sverdlovsk Region Government's Press Service & Information Department says. Prior to starting negotiations with the South Korean company, Experimental Plant considered offers from 43 Chinese enterprises. However, the quality of their produce looked questionable to the Russian party. The South Korean party, in its turn, was able to offer the best

October 14, 2013. At least 400 public transport and road-cleaning vehicles will switch to the use of natural gas in the next 2 years. Gazprom-Gas-Based Motor Fuel is going to invest in the development of natural gas filling stations, but the scale of investments will actually depend on the number of fuel consumers. The agreement to this extent was signed by Governor Evgeny Kuivashev and the gas company’s Chairman of the Board of Directors Viktor Zubkov. The Governor explains that converting a portion of public transport vehicles to natural gas-based motor fuel will improve the environmental

October 14, 2013. Experts from Ural Scientific Research Works (UNTK, a member of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) designed and produced a production line for assembly and welding of hatch covers of gondola cars for Uralvagonzavod. This modern equipment that meets the world’s highest standards, will be installed at the center sill department of the corporation’s head plant. This facility requires very little human presence and thus reduced the number of faulty items to zero, the company’s press service reports. Creating innovative equipment for making new railway and special purpose goods for

October 14, 2013. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) coordinated the 9th research to practice your conference in Sochi that is targeted at involving the younger people in production problem-solving, production upgrades, launch of new technologies and modern managerial techniques as well as at developing their creative potential, the company’s press service reports. ‘The youth forum serves as a venue for sharing ideas, experience, and practices at TMK, promotes corporate culture development, and builds up on informal ties between different teams,’ the message states. The traditional fall-time

October 14, 2013. Ural Airlines is launching a sale on tickets for flights bound for Europe, Dubai, and Tel Aviv this fall. The discounts can run to as much as 30% for the company’s regular customers. Tickets can be booked for departure dates between November 15 and December 20, 2013 from any airport where the airline operates its flights, in the said directions, the air carrier’s press service says. A direct scheduled flight to Dubai is offered by Ural Airlines from seven Russian cities: Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Mineralniye Vody, Nizhniy Novgorod, Perm, Samara, and Chelyabinsk. The

October 14, 2013. Russian citizens spent 13% of their income on rent and housing bills and 26% of their income on education. The share of money spent on buying shoes and clothes was 14% to 15%, Finmarket reports. As for food items, Romir Research Center states that everyday consumer spending rose by 4% in September 2013 compared with August 2013 and by 15% compared with September 2012. The increase was due to a dramatic (over 1.5 times) rise in the spending on everyday non-food consumer goods, while the food spending actually dropped by 10% in nominal terms. The share of non-food items

October 12, 2013. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) took part in the 6th metallurgical exhibition called Machinery Central Asia 2013 in the capital of Uzbekistan. The exhibition gathered a number of leading metallurgical and machine-building companies as well as pipe-making plants and metal goods plants, metal-processing enterprises, aluminum alloy plants, building businesses, and representatives of other branches of the economy's real sector. The exhibition was part of Central Asian Industrial Week 2013, the international forum held in Uzexpocenter in Tashkent. The forum was

October 11, 2013. The Iron Ozone 32, an electric steel-smelting facility of Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (a member of ChTPZ Group) mastered the production of blooms, including those made from the new steels SV08A and 3PS, using the new, energy-saving, open-jet technology, the company's press service reports. This technology does not provide for metal being completely isolated from atmospheric impact; this means the need for expensive fire-resistant materials and energy resources goes down dramatically. The said set of 150mm x150mm blooms underwent all the necessary testing that proved the

October 11, 2013. Evgeny Lapshin, former Director-General of NK Rosneft's TNK-Nyagan, was appointed Deputy Director-General for Economics & Finance of ChTPZ. According to ChTPZ Group's official announcement, Lapshin has experience in all fields of economic and managerial activity such as strategic planning, working on annual and quarterly reports, liaising with financial institutions and surveillance bodies, management of purchasing process, IT systems, and re-engineering of business processes. Lapshin worked for TNK BP for nearly ten years and held different posts in various

October 11, 2013. Yugoria State Insurance Company laid off 30% of its personnel in order to stop the growing losses, Vedomosti reports. The newspaper says the company made 850 people redundant in the first half of the year alone, and thus it now employs only 2,000 people. This resulted in the managerial expenses dropping from 3.1bn RUR in 2012 down to 1bn RUR in the first half of 2013. The decrease in the number of staff is supposed to bring down the managerial expenses by 34.7%, or down to 2.05bn RUR (as was the case in 2009). As a matter of fact, this increase in the managerial expenses was

October 11, 2013. SKB-Bank made it to the rating of the country's largest businesses, the bank's press service reports. Expert Rating Agency's website now carries the yearly rating of Russia's largest companies called Expert 400 that features enterprises from various economic sectors. The rating was based on the companies' sales revenues resulting from sales of work, products, and services. SKB-Bank made it to this rating for the first time and was given the 309th position. According to Expert RA, SKB-Bank's sales revenues amounted to more than 22.3bn RUR in

October 11, 2013. VUZ-Bank reports a slight increase in the amount of loans offered to SMEs. This means there is no decline in the small and medium enterprises' borrowing behavior, the bank's press service reports. Despite a bit of a downfall on the lending market in 2013, 13% more loan applications were submitted in the first half of the year than a year earlier. Nevertheless, VUZ-Bank lending management experts forecast that in late 2013 and early 2014, the borrowing rate will go down a little, which has to do with both the overall saturation of the market and the economic

October 10, 2013. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation presented the town of Volchansk with a new tennis court. This modern sports facility was put up by Volchansk Mechanical Plant, a subsidiary of the corporation’s head plant, the enterprise’s press service reports. The open-air tennis court is currently unique not only to the town (where the corporation’s northernmost location is based) but also to Sverdlovsk Region Northern Administrative District on the whole. The court is 35x16m big and has a concrete foundation covered over with elastic, grainy resin flooring made by

October 10, 2013. The supply on Yekaterinburg existing homes market still comes to about 8,600 to 8,700 apartments and houses, as has been the case for a few months. This is 28% (or 1,850 apartments) more than at the start of the year, Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s Analytical Department says. The median price of a square meter of housing is now 71,748 RUR. The prices keep going up slightly: over the last four weeks, the figure has gone up by 0.7% on average, and since the beginning of the year, the figure rose by 2.3%. The existing homes market has faced fierce competition from the new homes

October 10, 2013. Ural Airlines flew over 3.5m passengers between January 1, 2013 and October 7, 2013, the company’s press service reports. All in all, the air carrier’s passenger turnover increased by 27% by September 30, 2013 compared with the start of the year and came to 3,426,513 people. In the nine months of the year, Ural Airlines operated 25,739 flights, including 9,657 international flights, 10,514 domestic flights, and 5,568 flights around the CIS. The passenger traffic rose by 25% by October 2013 compared with a year earlier and reached 9,091,630,000 passenger-kilometers. In

October 10, 2013. The education center of Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (PNTZ, a member of ChTPZ Group) was visited by a group of delegates from Karaganda Polytechnic Vocational School, headed by Director Zeken Rakhimov, on October 6-9, 2013, PNTZ press service reports. As a result, a large-scale educational joint venture was adopted aimed at building stronger horizontal ties between Russia and Kazakhstan, the CIS’s No.1 metallurgical goods consumer. The project is related to training future metallurgical industry workers. ‘The student council of the educational center that is currently

October 10, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Vice Premier Valentin Gripas checked how effectively all the ministries and departments in charge of preparing for the world football championship of 2018 were getting ready for the big event, Sverdlovsk Region Government Press Service & Information Department reports. ‘A number of crucial decisions have been made by now, and the region is now working on an action plan to prepare for the World Cup. An ad hoc work team is being set up to make this process dynamic. The team will have representatives of the ministries in charge, and they will