UrBC, Moscow, July 2, 2018. Federal Grid Company’s shareholders decided on the amount of dividends for the year 2017 at the annual general meeting, TASS reports. Together with the dividends for the first quarter of 2017, FGC is going to direct RUR 20.31bn out of its net profit (RUR 42.36bn all in all) to dividend payments. The dividends thus amount to RUR 1.48 per share. In 2016, the dividends amounted to RUR 18.19bn (RUR 1.4 per share). This means the amount of dividends to be paid for the year 2017 is an all-time high for the business.

UrBC, Moscow, July 2, 2018. The Russian Government adopted a decree making it obligatory for all the Internet service providers and media transmitting services to store their users’ data for six months beginning from July 1, 2018. The decree is now available on the official legal information portal. The new legislature is part of the anti-terrorist package adopted on July 2018. According to the Cabinet’s decree, ISPs now must store their users’ personal data provided for various online services as well as voice messages, texts, images, and audio and video files for six months. Starting

UrBC, Chelyabinsk, July 2, 2018. ChelPipe Group’s SOT now makes a new type of product for the nuclear power industry: the plant made a set of induction bends (diameter: 219 mm; layer thickness: 11 mm) from stainless steel for the first time. The eighteen bends will be used for the construction of Belorusskaya Nuclear Power Station and have already been delivered to customer, the Group’s press service reports. ‘The fact that our customers in the nuclear industry trust us with important orders is the best proof of our product’s outstanding quality. We are grateful to our partners for the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, July 2, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) managed to save over RUR 255m as a result of innovative developments and improvement proposals in January-May 2018; this exceeds the figures for a year earlier by nearly 20%, MMK Information & PR Department reports. ‘Our expert boards processed 2,108 improvement proposals in the first five months of the year. 1,432 proposals got approved, which means 67.9% of all the submitted ideas proved a success (compared with 63.6% a year earlier). 423 innovative ideas got considered in May alone, and 292 got approved. 54% of

UrBC, Moscow, July 2, 2018. Russia placed a claim with the World Trade Organization regarding the U.S. steel and aluminum import tariffs, Prime refers to the Minister for Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin as stating. ‘It is believed that the United States violated quite a few of the WTO regulations when imposing extra tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. In addition to Russia, claims against the U.S. have also been placed by China, India, the EU, Canada, Mexico, and Norway,’ the minister said. The United States state that the 25% steel import tariffs and 10% aluminum ones got imposed in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s West-Siberian Integrated Metallurgical Works (ZSMK) induced a fish protection device at its Beregovaya Pumping Station in Novokuznetsk. The unit is meant to prevent the younger fish from dying next to Zapadno-Sibirskaya Power Station on the Tom, the company press service reports. ‘The electronic fish protection system creates a high-voltage field that wards off the fish and thus prevents the smaller, younger specimens from getting trapped in the intake chamber. The unit’s efficiency meets all the environmental requirements and the Russian

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2018. Some 100,000 people have visited Yekaterinburg during the first two weeks of the world football championship games, Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policy Department refers to the constituency’s Governor as stating. ‘We have footballers, supporters, reporters, and tourists from all over the world coming here: according to our preliminary estimates, these are around 100,000 people altogether. They have thus seen a city located on the Europe/Asia border and got to know this unique territory, known for its industrial, scientific, intellectual, cultural, and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) made and supplied to United Shipbuilding Company’s two large enterprises (Shipyard Yantar in Kaliningrad and Zvezdochka in Severodvinsk) more than 8,000,000 kg of L5 UM Larssen sheet piles, EVRAZ press service reports. Shipyard Yantar used EVRAZ NTMK’s piles to reinforce the banks for Building Berth 5. The piles had to be a customized length ones and had to be made from C320 strength grade steel. This was the first time the plant manufactured Larssen sheet piles from the required material.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2018. The social sector-oriented hackathon Socialhack Ekb will be held at Yekaterinburg’s Universitetsky Tech Park on July 7-8, 2018; the event is open to school and college students and young professionals. The hackathon is meant to serve as a marathon/forum platform for teams of web developers who will work on a set of given IT problems non-stop. For Yekaterinburg, these would be apps for low-mobility citizens, open data processing, educational apps, and urban improvement solutions. ‘Digitalization is changing both the world at large and Russia in particular:

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2018. Yekaterinburg’s final world football championship game (Mexico vs. Sweden) at Yekaterinburg Arena set a mobile Internet traffic record, MegaFon’s press service reports. People present at the stadium downloaded over 1m Mb of MegaFon’s online traffic during the match — twice as much as during any other of the three World Cup games held in Yekaterinburg. The traffic figures peaked dramatically at 8 PM, after Mexico’s team scored and the country's supporters started going online and paying particularly close attention to the Germany-South Korea game, as

UrBC, Moscow, June 28, 2019. Russia’s Sberbank recently introduced a special deposit type that mentions the World Football Championship 2018; the mention had never been coordinated with the FIFA, Vedomosti refers to its own sources as stating. The morning after Russia’s national team beat Saudi Arabia 5:0 in the very first World Cup game, Sberbank launched its special Win Deposit with an increased interest rate and promised in its press release on June 15 that the deposit would remain on offer if and for as long as the Russian team makes it to the play off and stays in the game. ‘Sberbank

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, June 28, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works’ Uralskiye Zori Children’s Health Camp recently hosted the local festival lab Theater Territory as part of its Children’s Hit Project, the plant’s press service reports. The festival was supported by Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and Magnitogorsk Council. The opening ceremony included a welcome address by director of Chelyabinsk Region Children’s Extracurricular Training Center Irina Skalunova, a series of introductory presentations, and welcoming words from the event coordinators Anna Vokhmyanina and Oleg

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 28, 2019. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) coordinated NTMK Best Young Team Contest and Youth Award Contest this month, the plant’s press service reports. ‘Five teams of young professionals won the NTMK Best Young Team Prize in the first half of the year: the plant’s blast furnace repair and maintenance team; the team from Converter Shop Mechanics’ Section 37; the blast furnace central electro lab; Team 3 from the wheel-band department; and Team 4 from the steel foundry department’s vanadium slag grinding section,’ the press service

UrBC, Moscow, June 28, 2019. Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev asked the Economic Development Ministry to develop a set of measures in response to U.S. import tariffs, Prime reports. ‘The U.S. authorities decided to impose enhanced import tariffs on certain items coming from an impressively large number of countries. These measures are clearly discriminatory in nature and have to get reacted to. The EU member states and China have responded already, so we need to think of counter steps as well. I am asking the Economic Development Ministry to come up with their proposals,’ Medvedev said

UrBC, Moscow, June 28, 2019. The federal authorities are no longer working on the draft bill regarding allowing supermarkets to sell over-the-counter drugs, Kommersant refers to the Russian Government’s Social Development Department’s letter to a number of ministries as stating. The decision to not go through with the idea is believed to be related with the recent changes in the Cabinet. The draft bill was initially proposed by First Vice Premier Igor Shuvalov, who became head of Vnesheconombank (VEB) at the end of May. Besides, former Health Minister Tatiana Golikova re-joined the Cabinet as

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) keeps improving its e-banking and m-banking services, the bank’s press service reports. Starting June 25, 2018, Android smartphone users will be able to log into their mobile banking apps using the fingerprint identification option; no password will be necessary. To start using this option, you need to get your app updated through Google Play, then log into the app and tap ‘I Agree’ on the fingerprint identification pop-up window. The number of UBRD mobile banking app’s users rose by 22% against the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2018. Volunteers from Gorod Pervykh, a Pervouralsk-based NGO, coordinated a green rafting session along the River Chusovaya. The twelve-kilometer-long raft involved cleaning up ten camping sites located on the shores, ChelPipe Group’s Pervouralsk branch reports. Gorod Pervykh was recently set up at the Group’s initiative in Pervouralsk. The volunteer organization focuses on the city’s environmental problems and tries to draw the general public’s attention to environmental protection issues. The green rafters collected over thirty bags of trash, all of which will

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2018. MegaFon’s engineers set up a virtual private network on the basis of their fiber optic channels for he air dispatchers operating in the Urals and the Volga Region, the telecommunications provider’s press service reports. Air traffic control towers based in Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, Syktyvkar, Kurgan, and Izhevsk are now connected through a protected channel. The VPN ensures secure online transfer of data related to all aerial activity in the Ural Air Navigation sector. Ural Air Navigation (a member enterprise of State ATM Corporation Federal

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, June 27, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) coordinates its third Fresh Idea Day in Magnitogorsk’s Komsomolskaya Square on June 29. The goal is to encourage the plant workers to submit their improvement proposals, the company press service reports. The event takes of at 10 AM. The square in front of the main office will serve as a venue where MMK Group’s employees will be able to present their innovative ideas and get a special gift. This year, pomegranates were chosen as the symbol of the day: everyone who submits a proposal will be given one. Additionally,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 27, 2018. Federal Grid Company Untied Energy Systems set up new electric current transformers and relay protection appliances at its 500-kilowatt Kustovaya Power Station in Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous District, the company’s Western Siberia division reports. The upgrades involve replacing six transformer units and eighteen 220-kilowatt high-frequency chokes and installation and startup of new cables and relay protection devices. ‘These upgrades will make our power supply to end users in Nizhnevartovsk and to the local oil and gas companies even more reliable,’ the