August 5, 2013. Ural Airlines added one Airbus 319 to its fleet of vehicles. The air carrier's press service reports that the liner is fit for 134 passengers (126 economy class seats and 8 business class ones). 'The new A319 will set off on its first flight under Ural Airlines name today: the plane will take its passengers from Yekaterinburg to the seaside resort of Anapa,' the press service says. With the addition of this new Airbus 319, the company's fleet of vehicles now comprises 31 aircraft (19 A320 ones, 10 A321 ones, and 2 A319 ones). Ural Airlines launched its

August 5, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region was given the 24th position in the rating of Russian Federation constituencies that are trying to reduce the government debt: the region's debt has declined by 11.4% since the beginning of the year and came to 18.38bn RUR as of July 1, 2013. Debts came to 13.6% of the regional budget's revenues in 2012. The federal constituencies' accumulated debt came to 1.311 trillion RUR, which was down 2.9% on last year, RIA Rating, a rating agency, reports. 48 federal constituencies managed to reduce their debt in the first half of the year. All in all,

August 5, 2013. UTair Aviation supported Yekaterinburg's application to host the World Expo 2020 event. The air carrier's press service reports that a branded logo that reads, Ekaterinburg World Expo 2020, was painted on the body of the company's VQ-BAE Boeing 737-500. The air liner operates flight from Yekaterinburg and a number of other cities to Vnukovo Airport of Moscow. 'Yekaterinburg winning the right to host this World Universal Exhibition EXPO 2020 will give a powerful boost to the area's development, will enhance business activity here, and will increase both

An inspection of MTS-Bank by Sverdlovsk Region authorities revealed that the bank's loan agreements violate consumers' rights. According to the spokesperson for the authorities, it follows from the terms of the loan contracts MTS-Bank is signing with its customers that a loan is only offered to a borrowing party provided that the latter opens an account with the bank. Now such a proviso in a loan agreement actually infringes upon the consumers' rights, as there is no legal requirement to open an account with a bank when a private individual is taking out a loan. Besides, it

August 2, 2013. The retail trade turnover amounted to 448.2m RUR in Sverdlovsk Region in January-June 2013, which was 5.5% more than a year earlier, the region's Economic Development Ministry reports. According to the Ministry's statistical data, the food/non-food items ratio was 46.4%/53.6% in the retail sector; the volume of food items in the first half of 2013 was 3.6% larger than a year earlier, and the volume of non-food item sales was 7.1% greater. The catering industry turnover came to 22.6bn RUR in January-June 2013, which is 5.5% more than a year earlier in comparable

August 2, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region is now the constituency with the third biggest amount of new foreign cars purchased by locals: 42,700 cars were sold in the first half of 2013, which is 2,500 less than a year earlier. All in all, 1.04m foreign cars were sold in Russia over this period, which is 4.5% less than a year earlier, Avtostat, an analytics agency, reports. Moscow residents still buy the largest number of cars: 31.5% of all the foreign cats that were sold in Russia in January-June 2013 were sold in Moscow. Saint-Petersburg, which represents 8.7% of all sales, is the city with the

August 2, 2013. The possibility of the electrolysis production stoppage at Bogoslovsky smelter was considered at the Krasnoturyinsk Duma's extraordinary meeting. The Duma deputies decided to write a letter to the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region, asking him to try and prevent the stoppage of the 6th section, as this section is responsible for the production of goods for the automobile industry. An official representative of UC RUSAL in Ural Federal District Roman Lukichev told UrBC that the company is now looking at different formats an enterprise could operate in under the current

August 2, 2013. Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev signed a provision on allocating Sverdlovsk Region a sum of money to build a football stadium in preparation for the World Cup 2018. The Russian Federation Government's official website states that Sverdlovsk Region is one of the seven federal constituencies to split 2.9bn RUR among themselves. These constituencies are: Mordovia, Volgograd Region, Kaliningrad Region, Nizhniy Novgorod Region, Samara Region, and Rostov Region. 'The implementation of this provision means we can finance the construction or reconstruction of 7

August 2, 2013. The Director of the Education & Science Ministry's Program and Tender Management Department Sergey Kravtsov was appointed Head of Rosobrnadzor, the Federal Education & Science Surveillance Service,' Kommersant reports. According to the newspaper, the candidacy was proposed by Dmitri Livanov. His choice must now be approved of by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, who dismissed Ivan Muravyov yesterday. Kravtsov himself chose not to offer any comments for the press. Now the 30-year-old Ivan Muravyov became Head of Rosobrnadzor last fall. His dismissal was preceded

August 1, 2013. The Russian Institute of Directors confrmed the corproate governance rating of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) at 8 along the national scale (Advanced Corporate Governance Practices). The changes in MMK corporate governance policy that took place during the monitoring period (July 24, 2013 to July 30, 2013) did not affect the rating estimate. In 2012, MMK implemented a number of projects aimed at improving the company's risk management system and approved of the new Charter and some other internal documentation. MMK's corproate governance rating on the

August 1, 2013. METCOMBANK customers can now buy some foreign currency without setting foot outside their homes using METCOM-Online, the new e-banking service, the bank reports. 'Foreign currency transactions can be performed via both the regular e-banking service and the m-banking one. The service is very handy for those who are trying to save up some money before their vacations or simply prefer to keep their savings in euros or dollars,' says METCOMBANK Chairman of the Supervisory Board Dmitri Torbenko. One can make the purchase using the Money Transfer (Transfer into My Account)

August 1, 2013. Ural Airlines operated its first Chelyabinsk-Namangan flight, the company's press service reports. Passengers on this new flight set off for Uzbekistan at 10 AM on July 31, 2013 (local time) on a comfortable Airbus 320 plane. Now the flights from Chelyabinsk to Namangan will be offered once a week, every Wednesday. The cheapest one-way tickets are available for ?200 (excluding the fees). Ural Airlines have been operating flights to Namangan from Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Krasnoyarsk. The new Chelyabinsk-Namangan flight will be available through late

August 1, 2013. Ural Airlines is launching a new flight from Krasnoyarsk to Samarkand that will connect Eastern Siberia to one of Uzbekistan's largest cities, the airline's press service reports. 'The first Krasnoyarsk-Samarkand-Krasnoyarsk flight will be operated on August 8, 2013 and will be offered every Thursday. The price of a one-way ticket starts from ?210 (plus the fees),' the company's press release says. Samarkand is now Uzbekistan's third city to have Ural Airlines flights offered from Krasnoyarsk. These flights will be operated on the Airbus family

August 1, 2013. Ural Federal District and North-Caucasian Federal District submit the smallest number of patent applications among all the Russian federal constituencies. Ural Federal District's share in the total number of applications comes to a mere 2%, the spokesperson for Rospatent, the Russian Intellectual Property Protection Service, reports. In the first half of 2013, only 731 private individuals applied for patents, and only 2% of these applications were residents of Ural Federal District. 54% of applicants are based in Central Russia, 13% live in the South of Russia, 12% come

August 1, 2013. Auditors from the international certification body TUV NORD CERT (based in Germany) conducted a re-certification audit of MMK-METIZ quality management system to check the system's compliance with the ISO 9001:2008 and ISO/TS 16949:2009 requirements. Following the results of the audit, the auditors' committee recommended TUV NORD CERT to issue a certificate of compliance with the ISO 9001:2008 and ISO/TS 16949:2009 requirements for MMK-METIZ quality management system. In order to be able to supply more goods to the car-makers, MMK-METIZ is also planning to have its

July 31, 2013. the Economic News Agency came up with a political weight rating of Russian businesspeople by order of Nezavisimaya Gazeta. The quarterly rating is called 50 Most Influential Entrepreneurs & Investors in the second quarter of 2013; BOD Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov was given the 17th position in the rating (the Strong Influence category) – the result was the same as in the previous quarter, and this is, in fact, one of the highest positions in the Russian metallurgical industry. The methodology of the rating that Nezavisimaya Gazeta

July 31, 2013. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), one of the world’s leading OCTG manufacturers, has recently supplied its goods in cooperation with an external manufacturer for the first time. A set of pipes meant for the surface casing was shipped to Kura Valley Operating Company; these will be used for the development of Padar deposit in the Republic of Azerbaijan, the company’s press service reports. ‘The shipment included some surface casing with couplings with premium threaded joints TMK CWB and TMK PF and casing without couplings with premium threaded joints ULTRA-FJ and ULTRA-SF. The

July 31, 2013. Seversky Rabochiy, a company newspaper published by Seversky Pipe Plant (STZ, a member of Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK), won in two specialized contests: it proved the best large-circulation issue dedicated to coverage of trade unions activity among the enterprises in the ore mining and metallurgical sector and also won in TMK Chrystal Furnace company newspaper competition, the company’s press service reports. The company newspaper contest run in the ore mining and metallurgical sector attracted scores of large-circulation newspapers run by Sverdlovsk Region-based

July 31, 2013. A new international photo exhibition was presented at Seversky Pipe Plant’s Severskaya Blast Furnace Museum. The exhibition is called There Are No Borders to the World – There Are Cardinal Directions, the enterprise’s press service reports. The project features two exhibitions, in fact. The first one is called Greece in My Heart and was coordinated at the initiative of and with the efforts of representatives of Corinth Pipeworks S.A. (CPW), a partner of Pipe Metallurgical Company in their joint venture TMK-CPW (based on the premises of one of Seversky Pipe Plant’s departments).

July 31, 2013. The trade turnover in the Ural Customs Administration area decreased by 8.9% in the first half of 2013 and the freight turnover declined by 15.9% against a year earlier as well, the Administration’s press service reports. At the same time, the number of cargo manifests processed rose by 12.4% and the number of foreign trade operators rose by 5.5%; the number if exporting countries dropped by 1.6%, the number of importing countries has remained the same. According to the customs officers, the decrease in the trade turnover involving the CIS member states had to do with decreased