UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 14, 2020. The average rental prices of Yekaterinburg’s industrial spaces dropped by 24.8% between July 2019 and January 2020 (down to RUB 53,560 per facility a month), domofond.ru’s research findings indicate. The rental prices of commercial spaces dropped by 3.3% (down to RUB 59,000 a month) in the course of the last six months; those of office spaces dropped by 0.3% (down to RUB 24,288).

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 14, 2020. The prospective oil-extracting cluster Vostok Oil in the Taymyr Peninsula will open new horizons for the Russian propping agent industry in general and for the Urals’ propping agent manufacturers in particular, Executive Director at OOO FORES Mikhail Lovkov says. ‘Just how plentiful the new opportunities will be will depend on how exactly the oil will get extracted from the new deposits in Taymyr. The fine ceramic granules that are generally known as propping agents are used to make the formation hydraulic fracturing process more efficient. This means

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 14, 2020. ChelPipe Group supplied 2,070,000,000 kg of pipes to customers last year, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 8%, the company’s press service reports. ‘An increase in export sales (total amount: 736,000,000 kg/36% of all sales) proved the key growth driver last year. 1,334,000,000 kg of pipes were also sold to customers on the Russian market. Our sales of large-diameter pipes (LDPs) rose by 33% and reached 916,000,000 kg, which meant the Group reinforced its leading position on the Russian pipe-manufacturing market. OCTG sales also went

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 14, 2020. Rosatom/TVEL’s Novouralsk-based asset CentroTech got its latest invention, Metallic Flat-Type Heat Transfer Tube, patented by the Russian Federation under Hyper-Heat-Conducting Void Structures, the company’s press service reports. ‘The invention falls into the heat engineering category and is meant for cooling print-boards in onboard equipment of space vehicles. The appliance can also get used in any type of industry where rapid heat rejection or thermal field flattening could be necessary,’ the company says. The tube is a flat, thin, airtight structure

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 13, 2020. The Russian Government intends to consider the draft bill on Sberbank share buyout on Thursday, February 13; the draft bill has been proposed by the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank. According to RIA Novosti, the Russian Government is planning to but the majority interest in Sberbank at market value using the National Wealth Fund’s money. Under the terms of the draft bill, the minority shareholders will have a one-time opportunity to buy the shares at the same price as what the Cabinet will be paying for their shareholding. ‘The draft bill will get

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 13, 2020. Sverdlovsk Region’s public debt came to RUB 59.887bn on December 1, 2019, with debt/tax and non-tax revenue ratio at 26.5%, the Finance Ministry’s report states. As for Ural Federal District’s other constituencies, Kurgan Region and Chelyabinsk Region, as well as Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, had over RUB 16bn in public debt as of December 1, 2019. Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region – Yugra came next (RUB 13bn). As of January 1, 2020, Sverdlovsk Region’s public debt reached RUB 77.1878bn, Sverdlovsk Region’s Finance Ministry reported earlier. According

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 13, 2020. The asking price of country-houses and summerhouses in Sverdlovsk Region dropped by 3% in the last quarter of 2019 compared with one year previously, Avito’s research findings indicate. ‘Sverdlovsk Region came 13th in the national constituencies’ rating of country-house affordability the last quarter of 2019; the average asking price came to RUB 23,000 per m2 (down 3% on one year earlier),’ Avito says. Summerhouses/dachas also grew 3% cheaper (down to RUB 14,500 per m2). At the same time, the asking price of cottages and town-houses rose by 2% (up to

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 13, 2020. The average monthly pay advertised in Sverdlovsk Region labor market’s job openings increased from RUB 44,685 to RUB 47,010 in the course of one year, the job search portal HeadHunter’s recent research findings indicate. The median pay, however, comes to RUB 37,000 a month (that is, 50% of people currently in the workforce get paid less than the given amount, while the other 50% get paid more). ‘Salaries and wages have been going up moderately but steadily for the last few years. The complicated labor market situation is a factor: employers competing

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2020. Ural bankers believe the CBR reducing the key rate this February will have a positive impact on the interest rates banks charge on mortgages and on the services aimed at business customers. Now the Bank of Russia’s Board of Directors held this year’s first meeting last week (February 7) to look into the CBR’s lending/monetary policy and to bring the key rate down by 25 b.p., down to 6% p.a. Analysts believe the latest statistical data on inflation that were made available at the beginning of the year served as the primary decision-making factor in this.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2020. Ural Airlines carried a performance report for January 2020, the air carrier’s press service reports. The year started off with a 15% increase in passenger traffic. ‘693,571 people flew with Ural Airlines in January (up 15% on a year earlier), including 343,175 passengers on the airline’s domestic flights and 350,396 passengers who traveled internationally. 4,960 flights got operated last month (up 12% on January 2019), including 2,485 domestic flights and 2,475 international ones. The passenger turnover rose by 15% and reached 1,706,731,000

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2020. 43,700 mortgages (total amount: RUB 89.8bn) got issued to Sverdlovsk Region-based applicants in 2019, press service at the Bank of Russia’s Ural division reports. The annual interest rate came to 8.96% on average in December 2019, which was below Russia’s average (9%), Ural Federal District’s average (9.07%), and Sverdlovsk Region’s average for December 2018 (9.68%). ‘The share of mortgages issued for shared-equity housing construction projects soared last year and rose to as much as 31% of all mortgages issued in Sverdlovsk Region. These mortgages

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, February 12, 2020. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) supplied 2,564,000,000 kg of rolled metal goods to customers in the pipe-manufacturing industry in 2019, which exceeded the figures for one year earlier by 27%, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. This has been the second largest supply amount in the plant’s post-Soviet era history so far. The only time MMK supplied more goods to pipe manufacturers was in 2014, when the overall amount came to 2,780,000,000 kg. ‘The pipe-manufacturing industry is MMK’s key home market, with 31% of all the home sales

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 12, 2020. ChelPipe Group’s team won seventeen medals at the Sverdlovsk Region round of the 8th WorldSkills Russia Championship, the Group’s press service reports. The large-scale competitions took place on the sites of vocational schools, including ChelPipe Group’s Training Center in Pervouralsk. Over 700 contestants competed in 105 different skills categories. Students on ChelPipe Group’s Future of White-Coated Metallurgy In-Company Training Program Mikhail Sarapulov, Stepan Makarov, and Danil Komarov won gold in Reverse Engineering, Industrial Mechanics &

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2020. EVRAZ Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Plant (EVRAZ NTMK) started making crane rails of the KR140 variety. This means the plant’s rail and beam department now manufactures all five types of crane rails from KR70 to KR140, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center reports. In order to master the new rail type, the plant had to purchase new rollers and to develop and produce new sweep samples and designs. This rail variety is difficult to make because of its size and weight (150 kg per running meter). KR140 rails can work for large-size

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2020. OOO FORES put more than 160 different job safety and working conditions improvement measures into the current Collective Agreement; the list for the year 2020 covers a whole range of projects from a special assessment of working conditions to providing workers with individual protective gear to paying for the employees’ swimming pool sessions to buying onions and garlic for wellness purposes. The company intends to spend more than RUB 112m for the purpose (compared with RUB 105m in 2019), FORES’s press service reports. ‘Under the labor law and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2020. EVRAZ Holding’s Raspadskaya Coal Company’s Raspadskaya-Koksovaya Mine launched its first large-diameter well meant for better airing of mine tunnels. According to EVRAZ Holding’s PR Department, Raspadskaya Coal Company first used a new drilling technology involving Robbins 73RH raiseboring rig at Yerunakovskaya VIII Mine about a year ago. ‘This equipment hadn’t ever been used at Russia’s coal-mining companies at the time. The rest of the world, however, knows this to be some of the safest and the most efficient ways of making large-diameter wells,’ the

UrBC, Moscow, February 10, 2020. Finance analysts believe the number of banks operating on the Russian market will keep diminishing, even though the process will slow down against last year. The weaker market players will be leaving mostly due to performing questionable transactions (50% of banks that lost their licenses in 2019 did so for this exact reason). According to Kommersant, rating agencies claim the Central Bank will now be revoking the licenses of banks outside of the national top hundred list. Based on the CBR’s data, there were 396 banks with valid licenses operating in Russia as

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, February 10, 2020. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) holds RPA Connect 4.0 Conference on robotic process automation in production and industrial sectors on February 27-28, 2020, the company’s Information & PR Department reports. ‘The conference participants will learn about the RPA potential with MMK’s active projects serving as examples. Talks will be given by speakers from Russian and international companies, IT and digitalization leaders that rely on RPA. The forum will dwell on the practical aspects of applying robotic process automation to various

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2020. It’s time for Ural Airlines’ annual summer flight sale again, the air carrier’s press service reports. On February 7-23, flights to the most popular tourist destinations in Russia and abroad can be booked up to 40% cheaper. The flights will get operated on February 10-October 31, 2020; the special offer applies on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. Members of the airline’s Wings Club can also enjoy an additional discount on February 7-9, 2020; you’ll need to sign into your personal member account to use the option. You can sign up for Wings Club

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 10, 2020. The overall amount of money Sverdlovsk Region-based private customers keep in bank accounts/deposits rose by 7.9% last year and reached RUB 771.5 billion, the Bank of Russia’s report states. In Russia on the whole, the amount of private funds kept in banks came to RUB 30.665 trillion on January 1, 2020 (up 7.3% on a year earlier).