October 11, 2012. Two processing units and a programmed numerical control lathe manufactured by the Czech company Kovosvit have been assembled at Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) Advanced Technology Department, Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s press service reports. In early October, one of the machines was launched by the Czech company’s after-sales representative in Yekaterinburg Igor Larin, who also provided training for the plant’s electric equipment team and mechanics. The other two mechanical treatment units are expected to be launched this week. Experts from the

October 11, 2012. Uralvagonavod’s Forging Department 1 has already met the annual target figures by manufacturing its 100,000th pivot well ahead of time. This important event occurred earlier than planned and one month earlier than in 2011, Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s press service reports. This achievement was made possible due to the August overhaul of continuous-working kiln 2 that is meant for heating up the ingots. None of the repairing jobs required a production stoppage, which meant the department retained its output and produced 8,500 pivots in August. The

October 11, 2012. The pipe-manufacturing enterprises of ChTPZ Group – Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant – launched their annual flu immunization campaign this week. The vaccines will be offered to employees through December. Over 7,000 workers from the two plants will be able to benefit from the free vaccine available in the corporate health units and the company’s Medical Center. The company management directed about 2.5m RUR to this good cause, ChTPZ Group’s press officer reports. The well-reputed, highly refined Influvac was purchased for the immunization

October 11, 2012. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) analyzed its environmental management system performance in the first half of 2012. The company’s environmental management system has been certified in accordance with the ISO 14001: 2004 requirements. The analysis has shown that MMK’s production activity in the six months of 2012 complied with the Russian Federation’s legal requirements as well as the international standards for environmental protection The enterprise was quite successful in implementing its water protection projects. The gross dumping of pollutants in the nearby

October 11, 2012. Governor Evgeny Kuivashev signed an order on setting up a work group for the preparation for and coordination of the 10th Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum in Yekaterinburg in 2013, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policies Department reports. The work team comprises 28 people and is chaired by the regional government’s Prime Minister Denis Pasler. The team members are the Vice Premiers, some members of the regional Cabinet, and representatives of the law-enforcement authorities. Issues related to the forum preparations are also handled by the

October 10, 2012. Two decades ago, in October 1992, the Russian Army’s primary combat tank, the unique ‘flying’ T-90, was put into service. Т-90 was designed by the experts from the Ural Transport Machine-Building Design Office that is now a part of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation; the model was based on many years’ research of how the T-72 tanks were used in various parts of the world in real-life combat. Thanks to its creators’ great experience and thanks to the rich traditions of the Office, the T-90 embodied the best features that made UVZ’s earlier tanks T-34,

October 10, 2012. OOO Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) shipped 165m RUR worth of cooperation-projects-covered produce to consumers in September 2012. Most of this money came from selling the railway vehicle component parts and nodes, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s press service reports. This is the first time the enterprise has reached these output figures: they are four times larger than a year earlier, says ChTZ Cooperation-Projects-Covered Shipments Director Roman Krupko. The plant fulfilled the orders from external customers (mainly railway carriage manufacturers) and thus mastered the

October 10, 2012. The solemn opening ceremony for Ural Airlines’ new Karlovy Vary-Tyumen flight took place in Karlovy Vary today. The event was attended by the Vice President of Karlovy Vary Region Petr Navratil and Karlovy Vary Airport’s Commercial Director Radek Zabransky, who gave a warm welcome to passengers from Tyumen, the airline’s press service reports. The Czech airport representatives made a cake in the shape of a boarding pass as a present. All the passengers on the flight were given memorable souvenirs by Ural Airlines and Karlovy Vary Airport. The ‘maiden flight’ from Tyumen to

October 10, 2012. The Environmental Safety & Management Public Council has been set up under Sverdlovsk Region Government recently, the government’s Press Service Administration reports. ‘Sverdlovsk Region Government pays a lot of attention to environmental safety and management in order to enhance the efficiency of the managerial decisions it makes. Under the government’s decree, the Public Council was set up for the purpose,’ says the region’s Natural Resources & Ecological Issues Minister Konstantin Kryuchkov. He pointed out that the Ecological Issues & Environmental Management

October 10, 2012. The machinery at OAO Kamensk-Uralsky Non-Ferrous Metals Processing Plant has been halted, Sverdlovsk Region division of the State Labor Inspectorate reports. It was detected through an inspection that the recent victim of an industrial accident who worked with the sheet metal shears (a part of the smelting department’s cathode copper-cutting production line) had been using faulty equipment. What is more, he underwent no training and no certification procedures. This constituted a violation of Article 189 of the Russian Federation Labor Code, of GOST 12.2.003-91 on The

October 9, 2012. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor carried out inspections of ZAO AKADO-Yekaterinburg and of OAO Digital Channels Network this September because the deadlines set for the two companies to eliminate the violations that had been detected there expired, the division’s press service reports. During these inspections, experts from Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor found out that the violations that resulted in the orders to eliminate them still hadn’t been eliminated after all. This is why the division placed the case-related files with the Federal Mass

October 9, 2012. The unemployment rate in Yekaterinburg came to 0.53% in the third quarter of 2012, Yekaterinburg Administration’s Economics Department’s data state. The highest unemployment rate (2.15%) was registered in Yekaterinburg in 2009, when the world economy was quite unstable. After that, the figures kept going down and came to 1.13% at the end of 2010 and to 0.77% at the end of 2011.

October 9, 2012. The Union of Bulgarian Farmers intends to set up a representation in Sverdlovsk Region, the union’s head Tsvetan Gerov said at a meeting at Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for International & Foreign Economic Relations, the ministry’s website states. The Union of Bulgarian Farmers is currently considering different ways of cooperating with the Russian territories, including the delivery of high quality fruit and vegetable preserves onto the local markets. The Bulgarian agricultural produce has been familiar to Russian consumers since the Soviet times: people know the canned

October 9, 2012. Within the first three days of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) offering its BO-1 bond issue at MICEX, investors have shown a lot of interests in the issue. For one, at least 20 transactions were landed every day during business hours on October 3,4, and 5, while the total number of transactions came to 68 and amounted to 147m RUR altogether. What is more, 10 transactions were landed within the negotiated deals mode and under the sale and repurchase agreements: these amounted to 389.5m RUR. ‘We feel that the investors’ great interest to this initial

October 9, 2012. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s parent company came up with a performance report for the nine months of 2012. The plant’s sales revenues reached 67.4bn RUR, which is 38.1% more than a year earlier (48.8bn RUR). The target figures for the year 2012 come to 92bn RUR, Uralvagonzavod’s press service reports. The company’s production output also rose by 14.7% in January-September 2012 in comparison with January-September 2011. In September 2012, the plant manufactured 2,350 carriages, including 1,800 open goods wagons, 530 cisterns, and 20 lumber trucks.

October 8, 2012. Reputation, a rating agency, gave OAO MegaFon AA(s) corporate social responsibility rating, which signifies the company’s high corporate social responsibility level and the efficiency of its strategy in this particular field, MegaFon’s press service reports. MegaFon’s rating, AA(s), means that the company has a working corporate social responsibility policy that is regulated by internal normative documents; that the company implements CSR projects within the core directions of its activity; that the interested parties get informed on all the relevant data; that the company’s

October 8, 2012. 155bn RUR were transferred to the Russian Federation budget from Sverdlovsk Region in the nine months of 2012; this is 11.3bn RUR more than in the nine months of 2011, Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Tax Service reports. Federal budget payments amounted to 43.7bn RUR worth of taxes, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 2.1bn RUR, or 5%. The VAT payments reached 37.9bn RUR, which is 18% more than in January-September 2011. Over the nine months of 2012, 3.2bn RUR worth of corporation tax was paid, which is 219.2m RUR, or 7% less than a year earlier. The

October 8, 2012. ChTPZ Group is planning to have its debt payments restructured for the period of up to seven years, the company’s financial expert Valery Lukin, who is currently working on the restructuring, told Prime. ‘A restructuring process normally involves the prolongation of a credit period for five to seven years, but every creditor is focused on their own priorities in this process. The main task is to reach a compromise that suits everyone,’ Lukin said. The company, which invested a lot of money in the construction of nationally important projects (Vysota 239 and Iron Ozone) in

October 8, 2012. ‘One of the main problems Sverdlovsk Region faces in the agro-industrial sector is the shortage of suitable storage facilities for the local farms. For one, cold storage facilities are very expensive,’ Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Agriculture & Industry Mikhail Kopytov said at a briefing. ‘The lack of cold storage facilities is particularly keenly felt in May and June of each year: this is exactly the reason why in these months, vegetables are imported in Sverdlovsk Region from the southern countries like the former Soviet republics,’ Kopytov said. Now in the Ural

October 8, 2012. Sverdlovsk Region Energy & Communal Housing Services Minister Nikolai Smirnov went to Kamyshlov on a business trip in order to look into how the industry-specific programs are being implemented, Sverdlovsk Region Press Service Administration reports. He paid special attention to the construction of the town’s first housing meant for relocating residents from slums: this program is being implemented with support from the Communal Housing Reform Facilitation Fund. Kamyshlov Council reports that about 140 buildings have been declared unfit for living in. The program on