UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2017. Sinara Group’s Sinara Development, the general contractor for the reconstruction of Yekaterinburg stadium in time for the World Cup 2018, is now working on introducing air conditioning on the site. According to the Group’s press service, five large cooling appliances are being installed at a specially equipped location to provide air conditioning in all the rooms under the spectator stands. The cooling units are quite unique in their size and capacity (up to 2,630 kilowatts). This is how much a stadium needs to make sure all the air ducts (23,000 meters

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2017. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) went through with a 5bn RUR bond issue at Moscow Exchange on April 25, 2017. The bonds are to be in circulation for the next decade, TMK press service reports. There’s a biannual coupon yield repayment and a buy-out option in three years’ time. The coupon interest rate comes to 9.75% a year. The loan was underwritten by Alfa-Bank, OOO Aton, VTB Capital, and Sovkombank, with the issue coordinated through VTB Capital. ‘TMK keeps working on improving its debt book structure. The goal is to cut down on debt servicing costs and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 27, 2017. JP Morgan is currently coordinating a deal to find an investor for Yandex.Taxi, Kommersant refers to it sources within the investment community as stating. According to one of the sources, the company ‘is trying to find around $150 to $200m.’ Yandex.Taxi has held talks with a number of European and Asian investors, primarily with those already investing in online taxi services such as Softbank Capital and Tiger Global. ‘There is only a limited number of Russian investors who could write a check this big; Baring Vostok and the Russian Direct Investment Fund

UrBC, Moscow, April 27, 2017. Food imports to Russia shrank into a half of their amount from three years before, Interfax refers to Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev as telling reporters. ‘The amount of imported foods nearly halved in the last three years, dropping from $43bn down to $25bn,’ Tkachev said. According to the official, this is the most important outcome of import substitution. ‘This is a breakthrough and probably the most significant result,’ the Minister pointed out. ‘You can take a look at any hypermarket, any store, and any mom and pop shop: most of the foods come from

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, April 27, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) will now offer larger subsidies to workers needing a down payment for their home; the figure will now come to 250,000 RUR, the company reports. The subsidies get provided to Help for MMK Young Families Program participants and come in combination with projects aimed at developing the young workers’ creativity and professional skills. The program was introduced in 2007 and means that several young workers with families who get selected in the course of professional skills contests and science

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod got its quality management system certified for compliance with the international ISO 9001: 2008 standard, the company press service reports. The certificate was issued by Russian Register, an international certification body that is member of the IQNet Association. The association comprises members from fifty-five different countries. ‘Ural Vagon Zavod received the IQNet certificate that proves the plant’s quality management system meets the ISO 9001: 2008 requirements. The advantage of this particular paper lies in the fact that it is

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. The number of workers under forty-five employed by Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) rose by 6% recently and came to nearly 40% as a result, the company press service reports. This increase covers a 4% rise in the number of blue-collar workers in this age group and a 9% rise in the number of managers aged 35 to 45. ‘Not only is our team not getting older, but the plant is gradually getting more of new employees who are our future. This is an impressive achievement at the time when companies facing increasingly more middle-aged

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. Rosset’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems completed the first round of repairs at a 220-kilowatt electric main connecting Troitsk Power Station with PS 90, the company press service reports. This resulted in more reliable electric power supply to end users in Magnitogorsk, including metallurgical enterprises based there. The company energy engineers replaced over 60km of overhead ground-wire cables, checked the main supports, and adjusted their spark dischargers. This year, the company technicians intend to make three more Chelyabinsk

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) stopped charging its customers for keeping their bonds in securities accounts starting from April; these accounts are part of the customers’ brokerage service and personal investment account package. ‘Our customers used to have to pay 0.5% a year, so as you don’t have to deal with any commission any more, this automatically increases your bond profit. What is more, bonds still remain the low-risk investment market leader in terms of profit, whereas interest rates on deposits keep going down,’ says

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 26, 2017. The telecommunications provider MegaFon’s technicians checked Sverdlovsk Region’s primary highways for high-season traffic readiness and improved connection quality at popular routes, the company press service reports. There’s now a wider coverage area in Koltsov Tract, for example, with new facilities providing high-speed Internet connection and mobile connection throughout 100% of the highway’s length. This applies to the nearby Svetly District and the Ramada Hotel. Thanks to the recent improvements, good quality signal is also available on Yekaterinburg

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2017. EVRAZ Holding intends to supply 700,000,000 kg of rails to Russian Railways this year, including 240,000,000 kg of one-hundred-meter rails. This is 60% more than in the year 2016, the holding’s press service reports. The company has orders for ten different kinds of products, including thermally strengthened rails suitable for high-speed travel, rails suitable for extra-low temperatures, switch point rails, and counter rails. Russian Railways’ order is being fulfilled by EVRAZ Holding’s West Siberian Metallurgical Works and Nizhniy Tagil Integrated

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2017. Four students on ChTPZ Group’s Future of White Metallurgy Corporate Training Program are going to represent Sverdlovsk Region in the final round of the 5th national blue-collar job championship WorldSkills Russia, the company press service reports. WorldSkills Sverdlovsk Region round winners are to compete in the all-Russian round in three categories: NC Turning (Dmitri Shmarlovsky), Additive Technologies (Alexei Gilev), and Mechatronics (Vassily Kozyritsky and Alexei Mikhailov). These contestants made it through the national championship’s selection and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2017. The average per-square-meter price of apartments in buildings with a doorkeeper service declined by 4% in the last six months, N1.RU reports. The average asking price currently comes to 81,800 RUR per m2, whereas six months ago, the figure used to come to 85,100 RUR. At the same time, the average asking price on the existing home market is on the whole visibly lower and comes to 70,000 RUR per m2. The number of apartments with a doorkeeper service currently on offer rose by 11% in the last six months. The average asking price of such an apartment declined

UrBC, Moscow, April 25, 2017. The state-run consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has been detecting 24% more counterfeit goods and adulterated foods in different parts of the country, including Sverdlovsk Region, lately, Izvestia refer to the Russian Federation State Council’s report on the national consumer rights protection system as stating. According to the report, even though the recent surveillance reform resulted in a decrease in the number of checks aimed at ensuring compliance with technical regulations (-17% in 2016 against 2015), the overall volume of uncovered problems keeps

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 25, 2017. 62.446bn RUR were paid to Sverdlovsk Region’s consolidated budget in the first quarter of the year, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 18.5%, or 9.729bn RUR, Russia’s Federal Tax Service’s local division reports. Most of the funds came from payments made by the basic industries in the processing sector, the sector for the production and distribution of electric power, natural gas, and water, the wholesale and retail trade sector, the building industry, the transportation and communication sector, the real estate sector, and the tertiary

UrBC, Moscow, April 24, 2017. The American company Visa Inc.’s net profit dropped by 31.4% in the first half of the financial year 2016/2017 and amounted to $2.5bn, Prime refers to the company’s report as stating. The company’s diluted profit thus reached $1.04 per ordinary share against $1.51 one year earlier. Visa’s operating profit came to $8.938bn, which was 24.2% more than in the previous financial year. The company’s net profit shrank by nearly four times by the second quarter, with diluted profit at $0.18 per share (compared with $0.71 in the previous year’s second quarter) and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 24, 2017. The average asking price came to 66,937 RUR per m2 on Yekaterinburg existing home market on April 17, 2017. This is 1.7% less than at the start of the year and 3% less than one year earlier, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. The so-called bigger-space apartments lost their value most noticeably compared with the beginning of the year, with price decrease at 2.7%. Also, the price of standard-layout apartments in five-story buildings from the seventies and the eighties, as well as that of the so-called improved layout apartments declined by 1.8%. Studio

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 24, 2017. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) supplied 850,000,000 kf of steel pipes to its customers in the first quarter of the year, which was 3.7% less than in QIV’16 and 0.6% more than in QI’16, the company press service reports. The company sold 658,000,000 kg of seamless pipes in the first quarter of the year, which exceeded the figures for the previous quarter by 4% and those for one year earlier by 16.7% due to stable demand on the oil and gas companies’ part. Welded pipe shipments decreased by 230% against the previous quarter and by 31.8% against one year

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 24, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Omsktransmash took part in the all-Russian Baffle-Gate-Free Week, the company press service reports. This means the plant held a series of job counseling events for local school and college students on April 17-22. Students of Omsk State Technical University and high school students of science - 190 people altogether - came to take a tour of the plant. This was 2.5 times more than last October, for example. All the visitors were taken on a guided tour of the plant’s departments and divisions, followed for the first time by a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 24, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil recently held its first plant-wide strategy and business management championship, the company press service reports. The head plant’s blue-collar workers and managers of various levels all took part in the event. The championship was coordinated by the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy & Public Administration (RANEPA). ‘The goal is to help our managers develop such essential skills as strategic planning, long-term planning and plan implementation, and understanding of how a