December 18, 2012. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development announces it is to pay the dividends for the nine months of 2012, the bank’s press service reports. The decision was taken at the shareholder meeting on December 12, 2012. The company is to pay a total of 300,436,300.2 RUR in terms of share dividends; this money will be transferred into shareholders’ accounts (0.3 RUR per one ordinary registered share of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development). The payments will be made through February 11, 2013. ‘The bank kept on growing rapidly and developing in the year 2012.

December 18, 2012. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court has put off the hearing of Russian Magnesium’s bankruptcy case once again, the court’s website reports. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court’s website announced in September that Asbest-based Russian Magnesium had applied for insolvency. The company’s authorized capital comes t o 85.6m RUR. The company’s shares belong to Solimag (50% plus 2 shares), Minmet Financing Company SA (2 shares), Uralasbest (25% minus 8 shares), and Sverdlovsk Region Government (25% plus 4 shares).

December 18, 2012. ‘Starting January 1, 2013, a patent taxation system will come into effect in Sverdlovsk Region. One has to announce switching to the new system no later than ten days before the action is taken,’ Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Tax Service’s website reports. The law relieves the tax burden imposed on the taxpayers by the Regional Act six years. For one, a patent to rent some real estate is now two times cheaper in Yekaterinburg and five times cheaper in other regional towns. The regional authorities hope that this will help the illegal landlords go legal, so this

December 18, 2012. 11 new prospective areas suitable for the commercial estate development have been added to the city map within the framework of a strategic project called Yekaterinburg’s Shopping Points. As a result, the total number of ‘shopping points’ that are located in the capital of the Mid-Urals rose to 79. Yekaterinburg Council reports that among the areas in whose development they will invest most heavily will be the promising ones within the radius of the Mid-Way Ring Road such as Academic, Kalinovsky, and Shuvakish Districts. The new commercial estate will be put up in

December 17, 2012. Governor Evgeny Kuivashev’s visit to Saint Petersburg on December 14 as head of Sverdlovsk Region delegation will be mainly dedicated to the prospects of interregional cooperation and promoting the Mid-Urals enterprises’ produce onto the North-Western markets of Russia, Governor’s PR Department reports. According to the regional government’s Vice Premier Alexei Orlov, Sverdlovsk Region and Saint Petersburg have been doing business together for a long time, and a cooperation agreement was signed as early as 2001. However, this agreement does not seem to be working

December 17, 2012. Sverdlovsk Region Government Vice Premier Alexander Petrov took part in the events dedicated to the founder of Electrokhimpribor and the special-regime town of Lesnoy Dmitri Vassilyev’s 110th birthday, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service & Information Administration reports. ‘We are planning to devise a multi-faceted development plan for Lesnoy, just like we did for Novouralsk in cooperation with Rosatom Corporation and TVEL. We have already got some expertise in developing a nuclear enterprise through production diversification,’ Petrov said. He added that a

December 17, 2012. The 15h conference of Uralvagonzavod youth organization took place at the corporation’s head plant. The agenda of the conference covered things like a summary of the organization’s performance in 2012 and electing the new committee and chair. Alexei Gilmutdinov was thus elected as the youth organization’s chair, Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s press officer reports. Youth projects are one of the plant’s social policy priorities. Uralvagonzavod employs 13,459 people under 35, which is 45% of all the staff. In 2012, the number of young workers rose by

December 17, 2012. On Monday, December 17, the foundation of the lower drive end for the passenger cable way will be laid in Arkhyz. The second cable way is being built within the framework of the project on expanding the infrastructure of a tourist resort called Arkhyz-1650; this is an all-year ski resort and a pilot project by the North Caucasian Tourist Cluster, Sinara Group’s PR Center reports. The launch of the station was split into two stages: first, the foundation for all the machinery was laid, and the drive end was assembled next to the installation site. Later, two cranes with the

December 17, 2012. Urals Electric Grids, a subsidiary of Federal Grid Company UES, is taking extra measures to ensure uninterrupted power supply to end users because of a harsh drop in the temperature, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service & Information Department reports. The anomalously low temperatures result in greater power consumption, which means a much more noticeable workload on the power supply system. This is why, to make sure the system keeps functioning in this period, the company equipment is to work in the high alert regime. At the moment the company is keeping avert

JSC «Severskiy Granitny Karier» is in the process of strategy decision making. Recently there has been the rearrangement of the share capital. At the moment of factory transference the former owners had provided the main technological process and initiation of production. Now in the plans of new shareholders is continuing of a large-scale modernization, the second processing chain introduction and the field Severskoe-2 elaboration. According to a source closed to the JSC «Severskiy Granitny Karier» managing company, a tender for the supply of crushing and sorting complex to organize the

December 14, 2012. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) will soon deliver a customized B-12 bulldozer to the border patrol division of Russia’s Federal Security Service, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. Specially for the border patrol officers, the bulldozer was fitted with wider-than-usual caterpillar wheels. The tractor with a trident-shaped ripper will be shipped to one of the divisions on the Northern Caucasus and will be used for fortifying the border and the posts. The Chelyabinsk tractor manufactures have already supplied their khaki colored vehicles to the border patrol

December 14, 2012. The 1,000-ton-strong machine is meant for cutting bar sections and can produce between 600 and 800 ingots with the diameter range 80-170mm per shift. The new shearing press cost about 12m RUR; it was manufactured by the German firm Erfurt, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. The foundry shop is already using a few shearing presses produced by the same company. The 315-to 1,000-ton ones have been ‘the weakest link’ so far, as they were made in the 70s and the 80s, grew totally obsolete, and needed repairing almost every week. Quite often, workers had to

December 14, 2012. The rating agency Expert RA came up with the 17th rating of Russian federal constituencies’ investment appeal for 2011-2012. Moscow Region, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Krasnodar Territory, and Tatarstan kept their top positions in the rating and their levels of A12. These constituencies have some of the highest potential indices and some of the lowest risk level figures, the agency reports. ‘The rating is indicative of the takeoff of the third wave of the constituencies’ investment appeal growth, which is characterized by three parameters: proximity to economic centers,

December 14, 2012. The employees of Seversky Pipe Plant (STZ), a member enterprise of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), took part in a charity event and donated their blood to children who are currently undergoing treatment in Yekaterinburg Children’s Oncologic Center, the company’s press service reports. The event was coordinated by the plant’s Youth Council. STZ workers – both long-time donors and first-timers – donated their blood at the Center’s blood transfusion unit. This blood is literally vital for the seriously ill kids. In fact, blood donation is already a tradition at STZ. In

December 14, 2012. There are quite enough Class A business centers in Yekaterinburg at the moment, as their share of the market is only expected to come to 7% to 10%, RED Management Company Deputy DG Andrei Braude says. ‘We are running out of the suitable construction sites downtown, and no new ones will appear unless something extraordinary happens, as is the case in Moscow, for example, when one quarter gets pulled down completely and a new one is put up in its place,’ Braude said. ‘We’ve got enough Class A office buildings in the city. They should only constitute no more than 7% to 10% of

December 13, 2012. The new Industry & Natural Resources Minister of Chelyabinsk Region Yegor Kovalchuk visited Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. Acting Director-General Sergey Golygin presented the plant’s produce to his guest and showed him the production sites where the reconstruction and technical upgrades take place. Speaking of the plant’s developmental priorities, the enterprise’s top manager mentioned the federal special purpose program that is coordinated through the head plant Uralvagonzavod; this program offers a total of 17.5bn RUR

December 13, 2012. Uralvagonzavod Armored Vehicles Museum is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Urals, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service refers to the museum affairs, culture studies, and tourism experts as saying. Uralvagonzavod’s Armored Vehicles Museum housed at the corporation’s head plant was recently visited by the representatives of national and local industrial magazines, some specially invitied experts from the Russian Tourist Industry Union, tour operator representatives, and potential investors from Moscow, Perm, Yekaterinburg, Riga, and other cities

December 13, 2012. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation launched a special high-performance computing center in Nizhniy Novgorod, the company’s press service reports. The center was set up within the framework of the federal special-purpose program aimed at the development of the Russian defense industry sector. The launch of the HPC technologies will mean that Burevestnik, the scientific research institute that houses it and is a member of Uralvagonzavod, will take analytical engineering to a new level by cutting down on the new product development and mastering times and

December 13, 2012. A ‘health check’ carried out by TNK-BP was complete at the member enterprises of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), one of the world’s leading OCTG manufacturer, the company reports. Throughout this fall, Moody’s auditor and TNK-BP Chief Quality Management Expert, accompanied by the representatives of TMK Trading House, paid visits to Volzhsky, Seversky, and Sinara Pipe Plants and to TAGMET. The inspectors looked at the enterprises’ production facilities, at the way the equipment works, at the commissioning trials process, at the quality management system, and at the methods

December 13, 2012. The Russian Expo Arms Exhibition in Nizhniy Tagil will reach self-repayment levels, the city Mayor Sergey Nosov said after negotiating with a representative of the French arms exhibition Eurosatory, the Nizhniy Tagil Administration’s press service reports. The exhibition’s Director-General Major General Patrick Colas des Francs confirmed at the end of the talks that the French experts were willing to cooperate with their Nizhniy Tagil counterparts in terms of the exhibition industry development. He pointed out that Eurosatory’s management team were particularly interested