December 6, 2012. This year, seven investment projects on reconstructing and building the local engineering infrastructure are being implemented in Sverdlovsk Region. 136.85m RUR has been allocated from the regional budget to finance the local cities’ work on this, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service & Information Administration refers to deputy minister Andrei Kislitsin as saying today. Now starting July 2012, such projects became a part of the regional multi-purpose communal housing services system modernization and development program; the program aims to help the local cities

December 6, 2012. It was decided at Koltsovo Airport’s extraordinary general meeting that the company’s Director-General Evgeny Chudnovsky should leave before the end of his term, the company’s information transparency server states. 99.8% of voting shareholders seconded this decision. This means that Chudnovsky will have to resign on December 31, 2012. The airport management authority has been handed over to Regional Airports Management Company.

December 6, 2012. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s head plant came up with a report on the preliminary results of the year’s performance. It is already clear that the year 2012 was very successful for the company, the corporation’s press service reports. This is true of all the basic divisions: the carriage- and mechanical assembly ones as well as the metallurgical one. Uralvagonzavod actually managed to exceed the target figures set before the workers at the beginning of the year. For one, this year’s expected number of carriages was manufactured as early as late

December 6, 2012. Some rockslide occurred at Krasnaya Shapochka mine, killing one worker (according to preliminary data), the press officer of the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Ural Regional Center reports. The rock fall occurred at 2:31 AM Moscow time; a rescue team is now working on the scene of the accident. Krasnaya Shapochka is a bauxite mine that belongs to United Company RUSAL’s SUBR.

December 6, 2012. A.I.Brizhan Youth Council at Sinara Pipe Plant (a member of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK)) won in the municipal youth organizations contest called The Leader of the Year 2012, TMK’s press service reports. The results of the contest were announced at a local youth seminar held in Kamensk-Uralsky’s Social/Cultural Center. Sinara Pipe Plant’s Council was declared the best in the city, while its head Denish Cheburin won in the Head of Youth Organization category for this year. ‘It’s nice to know that our activity, aimed at developing the youth movement at the plant, has been

December 5, 2012. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), one of the world’s largest OCTG manufacturers, bought a 55% shareholding in Gulf International Pipe Industry L.L.C. (GIPI) in the Sultanate of Oman, TMK press service reports. The enterprise’s capacity makes it possible to produce over 200,000 tons of OCTG welded and line pipes for the oil and gas industry. The plant’s key customers are currently some major O&G enterprises operating in the Persian Gulf. GIPI’s other stockholders are Oman Investment Corporation (OIC), Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC), and Posco P&S. TMK agreed with

December 5, 2012. UBT-Uralvagonzavod (a member of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) is launching a subsidiary on the premises of Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. The project was elaborated in order to sell Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant-Uraltrac’s produce. Using the subsidiary’s customer database will help the Chelyabinsk division of the corporation to sell its railway vehicles spare parts and components. The two parties will also cooperate in supplying Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant with goods and materials. UBT has already been

December 5, 2012. Yekaterinburg is now of the top 20 Russian cities with the greatest number of companies that accept credit and debit cards for payments. The rating is topped by Surgut, Izhevsk, and Nizhnevartovsk: these cities have the greatest share of companies whose goods and services can be paid for using a bank card. This information is available from the research carried out by 2GIS, who compared 180 Russian cities in terms of organizations that process cards issued by international payment systems. The research resulted in singling out the top 20 cities where cash is not quite so

December 5, 2012. An outlet in Yekaterinburg will enjoy great popularity, as this market niche is currently vacant; this will also attract more investments into the region, the plenipotentiary representative of the Trustees and Developers Guild for Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region Andrei Bril said at a press conference dedicated to the results of the Guild’s local division’s performance in 2012 today. ‘We need outlets to make sure people don’t have to go shopping to Milan and leave large sums of money there,’ Bril pointed out. Now there are currently no outlet centers in Russia. In 2012,

December 5, 2012. Yekaterinburg City Council is in no hurry to start working on the construction of the second line of the local underground network, as the officials fear the necessary funds (approximately 32bn RUR) will not be allocated from the federal budget, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Planning & Economic & Financial Issues Alexander Vysokinsky said at a meeting of the Economic Development, Investment, Industry, and Entrepreneurial Activity Committee and Urban Planning and Land Management Committee. To start constructing the underground, some time-consuming preliminary work has to

December 4, 2012. On the background of an active foreign investment attraction policy, one wonders what exact projects are of high priority and whether our vision of the investment attractiveness is the same to the approach of potential partners. The state encourages investment in the development of industrial parks, creating new high-tech jobs. Also those businessmen would receive substantial government support who wish to co-finance social infrastructure facilities like kindergartens and housing for public sector employees. This means that the projects offered for co-financing are either of

December 4, 2012. The representatives of Yekaterinburg Electrical Network Company took part in the All-Russian conference on the implementation prospects for the electric vehicles charging infrastructure in the Russian Federation that was coordinated at the initiative of Federal Grid Company (FSK UES). The conference participants talked about the electric vehicles market and charging infrastructure potential. This trend in the Russian energy and electricity sector is currently one of the most important ones; it is expected to promote the creation of Smart Grid intellectual networks and to

December 4, 2012. 1bn RUR was left in the accounts of Sverdlovsk Region Roads Fund by the end of 2012, Chairman of the Infrastructure and Housing Policies Committee and the Legislative Assembly Deputy Oleg Isakov said in the course of the committee meeting today. This money was not spent because of a savings policy. Isakov asked the committee members, who are, in fact, his fellow Legislative Assembly colleagues, to work out a procedure for integrating this money in the budget for the year 2013. Amendments to the budget to this extent have already been presented to officials for consideration.

December 4, 2012. Every day, OOO Bank Koltso Urala sends over 10,000 text messages to its cardholders, the bank reports. Today, on December 3, 2012, the first text message ever sent celebrates its 20th anniversary; this was a GSM-based short message service. Matti Makkonen, a Nokia engineer sent on a business trip to Copenhagen in 1984, suggested using GSM networks for sending text messages. His project came true in a few years. The world’s first text message that read, ‘Merry Christmas’, was sent from a PC onto a two-kilo Orbitel 901 ‘mobile phone’ on December 3, 1992. According to the

December 4, 2012. According to the latest updates available, 81,469 local residents have applied to Yekaterinburg Employment Center since the beginning of the year. 51, 860 people enquired about the labor market situation in the city; this figure included both job-seekers and employers, Sverdlovsk Region Employment Center’s press service reports. The number of people who applied to Yekaterinburg Employment Center in order to find a job is 18,989, including 8,753 officially unemployed residents. At the same time, 12,096 people found some jobs in Yekaterinburg and 603 people joined community

December 4, 2012. Sverdlovsk Region Prime Minister Denis Pasler, President of EuroCement Group Mikhail Skorokhod, acting Mayor of Nevyansk Svetlana Kazantseva, and Director-General of Nevyansky Cementnik are to sign an agreement on the implementation of an investment project today, December 3, 2012. The project involves the construction of a cement-making station in Nevyansk, the regional Government’s Press Service Administration reports. The new technological cement-manufacturing line will be housed in the existing facility of Nevyansky Cementnik in Nevyansk. The line is expected to produce

December 3, 2012. The participants of Sverdlovsk Region Economic Committee’s Board meeting looked at the prices for water supply, water discharge, and sewage water treatment services that the regional communal housing department will provide to the end users in 2013, Sverdlovsk Region Press Service & Information Department reports. The rate that was introduced on September 1, 2012, will be used through July 1, 2013, that is, for ten months. Starting July 1, 2013, prices will go up within the range of the average rate growth set for Sverdlovsk Region by the Federal Tariffs Service, namely,

December 3, 2012. Russian Vice Premier Dmitri Rogozin had a chance to discuss issues related to military and technological cooperation, including Serbian military vehicles upgrades by the Russian parties, during his recent trip to Serbia. He held talks with the Serbian President Stanislav Nikolic, Prime Minister and Internal Affairs Minister Ivica Dačić, and Vice Premier and Defense Minister Alexander Vucic, Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s press service reports. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s Director-General Oleg Sienko was one of the

December 3, 2012. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s Transport Machine-Building Design Office (KBTM) was visited by the Russian State Duma Energy Committee Deputy Chairman and United Russia’s General Council Presidium Coordination Council for Energy-Saving and Enhancing Energy Efficiency Chairman Yuri Lipatov. He held a work meeting with Omsk Region officials to discuss the energy security of Russian Federation constituencies and industrial enterprises, Uralvagonzavod’s press service reports. The meeting was attended by Omsk Region Economics Minister Alexander Trippel, Omsk Region Minister for

December 3, 2012. Sinara Pipe Plant (SinTZ), a member of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), started mastering the technological know-how and the manufacturing of a pilot batch of insulated lift pipes (Type 13 Cr, super-chrome). This type of steel is particularly resistant to aggressive environmental condensations and is highly corrosion-resistant. Insulated lift pipes can be used as the upper section of the oil-well tubing in the Polar North regions. These pipes’ primary competitive advantage is its special design that prevents the thawing of the permafrost around the oil well. SinTZ is