UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 7, 2018. Based on last year’s data, Sverdlovsk Region was among the Russian Federation constituencies with the most dangerous roads and riskiest traffic conditions. The rating was carried by Road Safety, an interregional public group and center. The center looked into the traffic situation in fifty federal constituencies. Nineteen constituencies, including Sverdlovsk Region, were rated Red (high traffic risk). Sverdlovsk Region came 32nd in the rating. The neighboring Chelyabinsk Region, which was also rated Red, was given the 50th position in the rating (that is,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 7, 2018. EVRAZ Holding’s fourth annual sports race will take place in Nizhniy Tagil on June 3. All those willing to join the race can sign up on www.evraz-sport.ru starting May 3. 1,200 sports players (400 children and 800 adults) will be taking part in the event. This year, one hundred additional children’s slots have been introduced to meet the demand. The children can compete in the race free of charge; adults are expected to make a 100-ruble donation online when signing up for the event on evraz-sport.ru. The money will get directed to putting up a new playground

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 4, 2018. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) joined the FinTech Association and will now work on the association’s projects and contribute to research together with other large member banks. There are currently some twenty major finance, tech, and telecommunications companies active within the association. ‘FinTech’s innovative technological solutions will allow the national finance market undergo a major transformation and achieve a breakthrough improvement in the quality of its finance services; these services will also grow more affordable and

UrBC, Moscow, May 4, 2018. The Bank of Russia is going to work to close down fake World Cup ticket-selling websites this year, the regulatory body’s official site states. ‘The Bank of Russia and the FIFA agreed to cooperate, with the FIFA directing any data about fake ticket-selling sites to the bank’s FinCERT (the center for monitoring of and reacting to cyber attacks in the finance sector). FinCERT will then be in charge of having these websites blocked,’ the website states. Russia’s Central Bank was authorized to have cyber frauds blocked at the end of 2016. The bank has brought down 25

UrBC, Moscow, May 4, 2018. The Russian Government drew up a list of ten produce categories that manufacturers must now provide with special markings; the deadlines for introducing the markings have also been set; the list and the dates are now available on the Cabinet’s website. ‘The list of ten produce categories that need to have special markings, and the deadlines for introducing the markings, have both been confirmed. The products in question are tobacco items, perfumes, various types of clothing, footwear, cameras, and some other goods. The goal is to reduce the amount of counterfeited

UrBC, Moscow, May 4, 2018. 76% of Russians said they had to look for ways to cut down on their spending in March 2018, Romir’s research findings indicate. The share of Russians who have to scrape their living went down by 6% in March 2018 compared with one year earlier, when the future was 82%. According to Romir’s research, they had to cut back on spending in every single consumer category. Mostly, people say they can’t afford to spend freely at supermarkets: 17% of respondents admitted they now must spend less on food. 12% of those surveyed said they couldn’t afford a vacation, and 9% had

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 4, 2018. 27.6% of Sverdlovsk Region’s formally unemployed haven’t been able to find a job for over a year, Sverdlovskstat reports. ‘According to a recent workforce research, it took our unemployed 7.1 months on average to find a new place of employment in the first quarter of the year. 53.5% of respondents were out of jobs for one to six months, and 27.6% remained unemployed for more than one year,’ the research findings indicate. 25,700 people registered with employment agencies as being out of jobs by the end of March 2018. This amounts to 1.2% of the local

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, May 3, 2018. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) directed RUR 679.7m RUR to job safety last year, the company press service reports. A look into the list of job safety events the plant coordinated last year reveals that all the measures were taken in full accordance with the current national legislation, normative acts, MMK’s local regulations, and the plant’s collective agreement. The plant’s industrial and job safety management system got certified for compliance with the international standard OHSAS 18001:2007 at the time. The re-certification procedure took place

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2018. RSG-Akademicheskoye, the developer operating in Yekaterinburg’s District Akademicheskiy, is coordinating a tender to select a contractor for two apartment buildings and an underground parking lot in Quarter 9, the developer’s press service reports. The tender is for a general contractor agreement to put up the above-the-ground part of Buildings 9.4.1 and 9.4.2 and to complete the under-the-ground part of the buildings and to build the underground parking lot 9.4.01/9.4 in Quarter 9 in District Akademicheskiy, Yekaterinburg. The contractor will also be in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2018. Ural Airlines are offering their customers a springtime discount on their Samara-Tel Aviv flights, the air carrier’s press service reports. A 7% discount is offered if you book your flight between April 28 and May 20, 2018; the flights themselves will be operated between April 28 and June 30, 2018. The tickets are already on offer. ‘Tel Aviv, the city that never sleeps, is one the best club capitals of the world. Israel enjoys great weather almost all the year round, so you can go to a beach, do some sightseeing, shop at farmers’ markets, and go to clubs,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2018. Shareholders of Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant (ChelPipe) voted in the course of the annual general meeting in favor of paying RUR 11.56 per share in last year’s dividends, the company reports. RUR 5.46bn will get directed to dividend payments all in all. This is ChelPipe’s entire net profit for the year 2017 (calculated in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards), as well as a portion of previous years’ net profits. The shareholders also elected a new Board of Directors: Alexander Fedorov, Boris Kovalenkov, Andrei Komarov, Oleg Kustikov, Dina

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, May 3, 2018. Director of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) E-Business Department Vadim Belopolsky won bronze in the IT Leader 2018 Award challenge, the bank’s press service reports. IT Leader Award was established in 2002 in order to keep the professional community in the know of all the changes taking place in the new digital era and of the most successful IT projects. Some three hundred managers and IT directors working for both Russian and international companies compete for the award every year. The winners get chosen based on the innovative

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2018. EVRAZ Holding Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) recently held a series of professional skills contests. Over two hundred employees competed for Best Young Worker Award, the company press service says. The contests were coordinated among repair technicians, crane operators, truck drivers, turners, assistant locomotive drivers, and rollers. Also, a contest was held among steel-smelting operators for the first time this year. The contestants had to deal with a series of tests first and do a practical task next. For one, rollers had to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2018. Alumni of ChelPipe Group’s Future of White-Coated Metallurgy Corporate Training Program took part in the reservist training at the regiment in Gorny Shchit, Sverdlovsk Region, the company press service reports. They did some line training and physical drills and learned the basics of operating weapons and using individual protective gear. ‘Our alumni and students serving their army terms near to where they live helps them keep in touch with their home town and the company they worked at as interns. As a result, one hundred percent of our training program’s

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, April 28, 2018. MMK Group came third in Ural Exporter 100, the annual rating of the Urals and Siberia’s largest exporters carried by Expert Analytical Center, MMK Information, PR & Advertising Department reports. The rating presents the exporters operating in the Urals and Western Siberia in the second half of 2017. There are one hundred major companies features in the rating, as well as top fifty subsidiaries of nationwide businesses. MMK Group, whose exports amounted to over USD 1.8bn last year, came third in the Ural Exporter 100 rating, which is the best position

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2018. Yekaterinburg Customs made RUR 7bn in federal budget payments in the first quarter of the year, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 1.6 times. ‘1,234 foreign economic activity agents were involved in export/import transactions in January-March 2018, compared with 1,079 agents in the first quarter of 2017. The agents submitted 20,500 cargo manifests (compared with 17,600 one year earlier), including 7,500 import ones and 13,000 export ones,’ the Customs report. All kinds of trading turnover indicators grew against one year earlier: the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 28, 2018. Sverdlovsk Region-based businesses paid RUR 69.6bn in taxes to the federal budget in the first quarter of 2018, which was RUR 10bn, or 16.7%, more than one year previously, the local division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service reports. The business in question are in the processing industry, wholesale and retail trade sector, transportation and storage industry, finance and insurance, real estate, science and technology, and the sector for the production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and steam. The increase in tax payments proved most

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2018. According to the Central Bank, the number of credit/debit card transactions rose by nearly 30% in Russia last year alone, with the overall transaction amount at RUR 41.8 trillion. The banking market experts are positive the growing POS terminal infrastructure is one key factor in this. URBD analysts agree: the bank’s statistical data indicate that the number of their acquiring terminals rose by 21% in the course of one year. It is preliminarily estimated that the overall number will increase by another 25% by the end of this year. According to the Ural

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2018. Ural Airlines are offering their customers reduced-price tickets for Yekaterinburg-Moscow-Yekaterinburg flights, the air carrier’s press service reports. ‘Special prices apply on April 25-June 10, 2018, for flights to be operated between May 1 and June 10, 2018; all fees included; price quotations are for round trips,’ the press service says. You can now book your Yekaterinburg-Moscow (Sheremetyevo)-Yekaterinburg flight for as little as RUR 5,000 and your Yekaterinburg-Moscow (Domodedovo)-Yekaterinburg one for RUR 6,000. ‘The airline started operating

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2018. The asking price of a Yekaterinburg-based business ready for sale came to RUR 3.729m on average on avito.ru in January-March 2018; this is 12% less than in the previous quarter yet 19% more than one year previously. ‘In terms of price of ready businesses advertised through Avito, Yekaterinburg comes sixth among the locations with populations over one million people. The average asking price is 9% above the country’s average (RUR 3.429) and 19% below the country’s top asking price (RUR 4.634m in Rostov-on-Don),’ the company press service reports.