UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 5, 2019. Ural Airlines will be operating three more flights from Blagoveshchensk to Moscow (via Yekaterinburg) and back on March 11-24, 2019, the air carrier's press service reports. The flights will complement the existing flight U6 300/299 and will get operated on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays (U6 30 Blagoveshchensk-Yekaterinburg-Moscow) and Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays (U6 29 Moscow-Yekaterinburg-Blagoveshchensk). Prices start from RUB 12,500 (one way) and RUB 19,600 (round trip). The state-subsidized air travel discount program for people living in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 5, 2019. Tyumen Region Customs officers detained a car full of counterfeit children’s toys near Kazakhstan’s border in Kurgan Region; the automobile was headed for Yekaterinburg, Ural Customs’ press service reports. There were 16,000 kg of children’s toys and clothing with Fila, Tommy Hilfiger, and Disney logos on them in the car; the items were supposed to have arrived at Yekaterinburg’s shops in the nearest future. The trademark owners have already confirmed their logos had been used illegally. They estimated the damage done to the business at RUB 2 million.

UrBC, Moscow, March 5, 2019. The price of a one-bedroom apartment currently comes to RUB 3.816 million on Yekaterinburg's existing home market, which exceeds the figures for one year earlier by 5%, Domofond.ru's own research findings indicate, their press service says. This price increase makes Yekaterinburg No.14 among Russia's seventy-five largest cities/housing markets. According to Domofond.ru's pricing statistics, the price of one-bedroom homes rose in seventy-four out of seventy-five Russian cities. The increase ranged between 1% in Nizhniy Tagil and 22% in Kazan.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 5, 2019. A direct Yekaterinburg-Kaluga flight got launched on March 2, Sverdlovsk Region's Information Policy Department reports. The flights will be available every Saturday and Tuesday. Departure (Koltsovo Airport, Yekaterinburg): 7:20 PM local time. The flight will get operated on the 50-seat Bombardier CRJ-100/200 and will be two and a half hours long.

UrBC, Moscow, March 5, 2019. The Central Bank of Russia purchased RUB 12.5 billion worth of foreign currency for the Finance Ministry, the bank's website states. The CBR intends to direct RUB 194 billion to foreign currency purchases on February7-March 6, 2019 altogether, with the daily purchase amount at the equivalent of RUB 9.7 billion. On February 1, the bank also resumed the foreign currency purchases that had been scheduled for the year 2018 and then postponed. The purchase amount planned originally came to around $30bn. The daily purchase amount for these additional transactions

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, March 4, 2019. President of the Russian Union of Industrialists & Entrepreneurs’ Chelyabinsk Region division and Chair of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Board of Directors Viktor Rashnikov is going to coordinate the Union Board’s meeting on March 1, 2019. The agenda of the meeting covers Ekologia, a national environmental project, and diversification programs within the defense industry. According to MMK’s Information & PR Department, the meeting will be held at MMK’s ski resort Abzakovo. Chelyabinsk Region Government’s top officials, representatives of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 4, 2019. According to MegaFon, the amount of online traffic its Urals-based business customers used in the last three months increased by 1.5 times; also, increasingly more users choose the speediest option of the 4G network, the telecom company’s press service reports. Companies operating in Yugra and Yamal are currently the top Internet traffic consumers; companies operating in Sverdlovsk Region are the third largest traffic market in Ural Federal District. St. Valentine’s Day proved the busiest online communication day in February: MegaFon’s Internet workload (as

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 4, 2019. Visa is launching a special offer for the customers of the Ural Bank of Reconstruction & Development (UBRD), the bank’s press service reports. To join Visa’s prize-drawing lottery, you need to use your UBRD Visa card (or a smartphone that has the UBRD Visa payment app) to pay for your shopping on February 18-March 31, 2019. The receipts need to get uploaded to pay.visa.ru. The more receipts you upload, the higher your chances are of winning a prize. The cardholders could win up to RUB 10,000 for shopping at any store and up to RUB 100,000 for shopping

UrBC, Moscow, March 4, 2019. According to the Central Bank of Russia’s January issue of Economy: facts, assessments and comments, the annual GDP growth can be expected to reach 1% to 1.5% in the first quarter of 2019 and 1.2%-1.7% by the end of the year. In terms of volume, Russia’s GDP rose by 2.3% in 2018, which was somewhat better than the CBR had predicted (1.5% to 2%) and also higher than could be expected from the economy’s long-term potential. In many respects, this was brought about by temporary factors (including, for example, the completion of certain large-scale infrastructure

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 4, 2019. Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities uncovered a number of grave offenses in the civil service sector last year, their press service reports. Following the public prosecutors’ reports, 22 officials from among Sverdlovsk Region’s power structures (including one Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly deputy) got fired due to loss of trust; 10 deputies of local-level Dumas got removed before the end of their elected term. The prosecution authorities also kept working to have the property of civil servants seized by the state in cases where the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 1, 2019. According to MegaFon, there are now over two million 4G-supporting gadgets in Sverdlovsk Region right now. The new gadgets get registered faster than the LTE-supporting ones: every one in seven 4G-supporting gadget users bought two devices in the last twelve months. MegaFon’s press service says large-display smartphones by Samsung, Vertex, Xiaomi, Apple, and Honor proved the market’s bestsellers. Their owner uses 9 Gb worth of online traffic a month on average, which is 33% more than one year earlier. ‘Online content gets ‘heavier’: our customers are

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 1, 2019. The accounts payable of Sverdlovsk Region’s businesses (excluding small enterprises) amounted to RUB 1,053.5bn on December 31, 2018; RUB 72.1bn out of this amount (6.8%) was overdue A/P, Sverdlovskstat reports. The amount of A/P shrank by 0.7% in the course of one month; that of overdue A/C decreased by 14.5%. The share of companies with overdue A/P came to 19.5% of all businesses operating in the area. 85.7% of overdue A/P stemmed from money due to suppliers and contractors for their goods, or services, or performed jobs. 18.6% of reporting businesses had

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 1, 2019. Sverdlovsk Region-based banks issued 1,773 car loans to local applicants in January 2019, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 8.2%, the National Credit History Bureau’s press service reports. In Russia on the whole, the number of new car loans came to 49,400 in January 2019 (up 7.7% on January 2018). ‘Even though the number of car loans rose this January compared with January 2018, the increase was still less prominent than in the year 2018 on the whole. This mostly has to do with the fact that state-subsidized car buying programs came to an

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 1, 2019. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) came up with a special offer on International Women’s Day (March 8), the bank’s press service reports. ‘If you buy International Women’s Day gifts for your business partners and coworkers using UBRD business customer card, you can brighten their day — and yours, as there’s a 1% cashback option on these purchases,’ the press service says. The special offer holds on February 27-March 15. The cashback gets paid if the business owner uses the card to pay at restaurants, cafes, bars, and nightclubs or

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, March 1, 2019. The new cryogenic plant at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Oxygen Department produced 100m m3 of industrial gases, including oxygen, nitrogen, and argon, MMK’s press service reports. The cryogenic plant cost RUB 4.2bn and was put up at Oxygen Station 5 of MMK Oxygen Department in July 2018. The cryogenic air separation plant KlAdAr 35/30 was designed and manufactured by Moscow Region-based CryogenMash; the unit makes 35,000 m3 of oxygen, 30,000 m3 of nitrogen, and 600 m2 of argon gases per hour, as well as a certain amount of oxygen, nitrogen, and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 28, 2019. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) increased the interest rate on its Flexible Business Deposit. This is an interesting offer for the companies that become the bank’s customers to place their funds there; no settlement account is even necessary. According to the bank’s press service, the interest rate comes to 7% a year. The company that holds the account can add any amount of money to the deposit or take out any amount out of it as well. Given the taking-out option, these are believed to be the best terms available on the market

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, February 28, 2019. The 20th International UzBuild 2019 Exhibition opened in Tashkent this week; Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is taking part in the event, the company’s press service reports. Uzbekistan is one of MMK’s key sales markets. The plant supplied 360,000,000 kg of metal goods to Uzbekistan-based customers last year, which amounted to more than a quarter of all shipments to customers within the CIS and to around 85% of all shipments to customers in Central Asia. This year, MMK is presenting a wide range of metal goods, with a focus on construction

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 28, 2019. Ural Airlines are introducing a new Samara-Tbilisi flight U6 2525/2526 on April 1; the flight will get operated every Monday and Friday. According to the air carrier’s press service, prices start from RUB 7,078/EUR 95 for Samara-Tbilisi flights and from RUB 8,940/EUR 120 for Tbilisi-Samara ones, all fees and one piece of luggage under 10 kg included. Prices are subject to change depending on the euro exchange rate. ‘Springtime Georgia welcomes visitors with warm enough weather and low prices. This time of the year, your vacation will prove no less

UrBC, Moscow, February 28, 2019. 21.5% of deposits opened by private customers at Russian banks were foreign currency ones as of February 1, 2019 (up 0.1% on January 2019 and up 0.9% if the foreign currency revaluation factor is omitted), the Central Bank of Russia’s recent report on the country’s banking market in 2018 and early 2019 states. In late January, the share of foreign currency deposits and foreign currency in businesses’ accounts was still 37% just like at the start of the year (and almost 38% if the foreign currency revaluation factor is omitted). The overall amount of interbank

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 28, 2019. DeloBank (SKB-Bank-supported service for businesspeople) evolved into a very popular businesspeople-oriented ecosystem within one year of the launch, DeloBank’s press service reports. The bank now collaborates with over 40,000 small enterprises and sole traders across Russia. Markswebb awarded the service the second prize in the annual Business Internet Banking Rank 2018. ‘The most important positive outcome of DeloBank’s first year on the market is the trust of thousands of businesspeople who became our customers. We are developing a full-fledged