UrBC, Moscow, June 6, 2019. Russia’s Finance Ministry intends to buy RUB 310.3 billion worth of foreign currency for its reserves in June, the ministry’s website states. ‘The overall amount of money directed to foreign currency purchases comes to RUB 310.3 billion. The purchase transactions will take place on June 7-July 4, 2019 (RUB 16.3 billion worth of foreign currency will get purchased every day),’ the website says. According to the Finance Ministry, they expect RUB 324 billion in extra oil and gas revenues in June, as the actual oil prices are now higher than what the predicted base

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 5, 2019. SKB-Bank Group and Otkritie FC Bank merged their ATM networks into one, the former’s press service reports. As a result, either bank’s cardholders can now take out cash from both banks’ ATMs commission-free. The merged network now comprises more than 6,000 units in different Russian cities, including 400+ ATMs in Moscow, 200+ ATMs in Saint Petersburg, and the (formerly unavailable) ATMs in Barnaul, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Ufa, Pyatigorsk, Norilsk, and other locations. SKB-Bank Group comprises SKB-Bank as its core as well as Gazenergobank, Kaluga Region’s largest

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, June 5, 2019. MMK Lysva Metallurgical Plant’s output more than doubled in the course of one year, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. The plant made 110,100,000 kg of goods in 2017 and 248,500,000 kg in 2018. The goal is to raise the output by another 20% so that the final figure comes to 300,000,000 kg, Director-General Sergey Dubrovsky said during his meeting with Governor of Perm Territory Maxim Reshetnikov (who visited the plant during his business trip to Lysva). According to Perm Territory Government’s press service, Sergey Dubrovsky and Governor

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 5, 2019. Ural Airlines started operating flights from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport to Bordeaux and Montpellier last weekend, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘We first operated a Moscow-Bordeaux flight on June 1 and a Moscow-Montpellier one on June 2. The plane arriving to Moscow back from Montpellier received a water-arch welcoming ceremony, and passengers received some souvenirs and could take part in a bit of festivities to celebrate the occasion,’ the press service says. Domodedovo-Montpellier-Domodedovo flights get operated on Wednesdays, Fridays, and

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, June 5, 2019. The 26th International Trade Fair for Coal Mining Technology, Preparation and Materials Handling (UGOL ROSSII & MINING) began in Novokuznetsk this week; Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is taking part in the event, the company’s Information & PR Department reports. UGOL ROSSII & MINING is the country’s largest exhibition project for every sector of the ore mining industry and a unique platform for presenting new technologies. MMK is featuring its heavy-duty, wear-resistant MAGSTRONG steels at the event. The steels are used for making and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 5, 2019. 23 Ural Federal District-based lending institutions held banking licenses allowing them to deposit natural persons’ money as of April 1, 2019, the Deposit Insurance Agency reports. ‘Additionally, twelve local banks were undergoing liquidation procedures at the time, which means that there were 35 banks in Ural Federal District as of April 1, 2019 all in all,’ the agency says. The amount of money private customers placed with Ural Federal District-based banks rose by RUB 4.6bn (1%) in the first quarter of 2019 compared with the start of the year and reached

UrBC, Moscow, June 4, 2019. The debt ratio that Russia’s self-employed are currently facing rose by 1.7% in the last six months and now comes to 29.3%, the National Credit History Bureau’s press service reports. Workers in the pharmaceutical and medical professions, social service, private security firms, and the self-employed have the highest debt ratio as of April 2019: 32.9%, 32.8%, 30%, and 29.3%, respectively. Workers in the IT sector, telecom, and marketing, PR, and advertising have the lowest debt ratio as of April 2019: 12.4%, 13.9%, and 18.6%, respectively. In the last year, the debt

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 4, 2019. EVRAZ Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant (EVRAZ NTMK) recently coordinated a series of job skills contests which involved 190 employees in the 18-45 age group. This year, the age bracket got extended so that not just the younger workers but also the more experienced ones could compete. According to EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center, the contests were held in eight professional fields and covered a multiple choice test on theory, an interview with the judges’ panel, and a practical task. ‘Welders had to do butt weld and a T joint on plates

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 4, 2019. 33,000 claims related to unpaid energy bills have been placed against Sverdlovsk Region’s residents since the start of the year. 17,000 enforcement orders have resulted in RUB 55.7 million in paid debts, including RUB 37 million withdrawn from the debtors’ credit/debit cards, EnergosbyT Plus’s Sverdlovsk Region division’s press service reports. Sverdlovsk Region-based users currently owe more than RUB 1.1 billion in energy bills, which exceeds the figures for one year earlier by RUB 173 million.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 4, 2019. The founding ceremony for Preobrazhensky Park took place in Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy on Saturday, June 1. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev, Mayor of Yekaterinburg Alexander Vysokinsky, and a number of local residents planted the park’s first trees themselves. The fifty-hectare-large park is expected to house 16,000 trees (pine trees, fir trees, rowan-trees, willows, and lime trees) within an eight-hectare-large allotment. The planting ceremony took place on International Children’s Day. Several hundred young trees got planted

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, June 3, 2019. Students from Children’s Singing School (set up at the initiative of and with financial support from ChelPipe Group’s shareholders Andrei Komarov and Alexander Fedorov) are to present The Cat’s House, a children’s opera, on June 1. According to ChelPipe Group’s press service, thirty-five young actors/singers will be performing on stage for four hundred young spectators for the very first time at Chelyabinsk State Drama Chamber Theater. The play gets performed for charity purposes and is meant as the International Children’s Day present for children from local

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, June 3, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) was once again acknowledged as Russia’s largest supplier of rolled metal goods for welded pipe manufacturers during a recent conference, the company’s Information & PR Department refers to MMK’s Head of Sales to Pipe Manufacturers Alexander Kadoshnikov as stating. The 9th Steel Pipe Industry Regional Sales Conference took place in Rostov-on-Don. Kadoshnikov gave a talk there and said that the pipe-making industry was one of MMK’s key home market customers, with over 25% of the plant’s Russian market sales being

UrBC, Moscow, June 3, 2019. Every MegaFon subscriber used 10.7 Gb of online traffic in the first quarter of 2019 on average, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 27.6%, the telecom company’s press service refers to their financial/performance report for the first three months of the year 2019 as stating. The increase in traffic had to do with the users’ growing interest in Internet services. MegaFon’s recently updated payment plans, upgrades of popular options, marketing campaigns (‘Buy one Samsung smartphone and get one free’), Gigateka, and other data transfer-related special

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 3, 2019. Participants of EVRAZ Holding’s Children’s Foresight Program developed some twenty social and urban improvement projects for Nizhniy Tagil and Kachkanar. The schoolchildren intend to have the projects implemented within the next eight months and to present the results in December 2019, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center reports. The program participants presented their projects to their potential partners: Kachkanar and Nizhniy Tagil town councils, EVRAZ Holding, Social Investments Foundation, Department of Education, Chamber of Commerce

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, June 3, 2019. The Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage (Rosprirodnadzor)’s Chelyabinsk Region division officials paid a visit to Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe), ChelPipe Group’s press service reports. ‘ChelPipe’s Managing Director Evgeny Gubanov, Head of Rosprirodnadzor’s Chelyabinsk Region division Vitaliy Kuryatnikov, and Head of Project Office at Clean Air Federal Project Alexander Vlasov met to talk about the potential acid waste water filtering facilities at ChelPipe and about the initiatives the company takes on as part of the National

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 31, 2019. About 90% of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s business customers get their business cards insured as soon as the card gets issued, the bank’s press service reports. ‘The existing transaction security mechanisms are naturally fully applicable to our business cards, so these are highly unlikely to get hacked: it would take the resources and infrastructure comparable with those that banks’ entire IT departments have to actually do that. Besides, the bank keeps working non-stop to improve and enhance its IT security. The human factor,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 31, 2019. ChelPipe Group starts its enrollment campaign for the Future of White-Coated Metallurgy Corporate Training Program in Chelyabinsk Region and Sverdlovsk Region on June 1. According to the Group’s press service, eligible to apply are 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students from anywhere in Russia; there are no exams to sit, as the enrollment is based on the students’ GPA. Pervouralsk Metallurgical School (Sverdlovsk Region) enrolls students on the following programs: Operation & Maintenance of Electrical Equipment, Assembly and O&M of Industrial Equipment,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 31, 2019. MegaFon recently launched Video.Analytics, a new service that helps you detect, identify, and track certain scenarios and objects, the telecom company’s press service reports. ‘The service unites object video analysis and object recognition within one interface and provides a convenient reporting system; you can also use it to search for a particular item within a large archive of video data. Users can opt for various settings as to where and for how long to store the data, what video analytics modules should get used, and what extra options to get,’ the

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, May 31, 2019. Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe) Board of Directors coordinated a meeting on May 28, the Group’s press service reports. The BOD members voted in absentia to approve of the company’s annual report and accounting report for the year 2018 and to suggest that the shareholders distribute the company’s net profit for 2018 and a portion of net profit for the previous years (RUB 4.7 billion all in all) towards share dividends (RUB 15.38 per share). ‘The BOD members also agreed on the list of candidates to get elected onto the BOD during the upcoming AGM. They

UrBC, Moscow, May 31, 2019. Russia extended its capital amnesty proviso through March 1, 2020. President Vladimir Putin already signed the amendments to Federal Law No. 140-FZ (‘On Voluntary Declaration by Individuals of Property and Bank Accounts (Deposits) and on Amending Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation’). The amendments concern Article 5 of the law, which now states the bracket for the third deceleration stage as June 1, 2019-February 29, 2020. The law comes into effect the moment its gets published. Under the current capital amnesty terms, money that left Russia can get