UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 31, 2017. The average credit card limit amount went down from 61,114 RUR on January 1, 2016 to 52,691 RUR on January 1, 2017 (-13.8%) for Sverdlovsk Region-based cardholders, National Bureau of Credit History’s press service reports. According to the Bureau, 68.6% of cardholders actually used up their entire credit card limit in the last quarter of 2016 (+8.1% on the third quarter). Credit utilization rose most noticeably in Kamchatka (+40.9%), Kursk and Belgorod Regions (+36.3% and 34.4%, respectively) and dropped most visibly in Kalmykia (-15.4%), Altai

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 31, 2017. The international aircraft giants Boeing and Airbus might no longer be buying titanium from VSMPO AVISMA, Verkhnyaya Salda, President of Ural Chamber of Commerce & Industry Andrei Besedin says. ‘Both Titanium Valley and the Mid-Urals Development Corporation, as well as Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Investment & Economic Development, are painfully aware of where our negotiations with Boeing and Airbus are going. The time is coming when they won’t need our titanium any longer, as their entire designer teams are working to switch to completely new

UrBC, Moscow, January 31, 2017. ChTPZ Group recently launched a trainee program to invite promising students and undergraduates onto their plants, the company press service reports. Over fifty students from Bauman Moscow State Technical University, National University of Science and Technology, Gubkin Russian State University of Oil & Gas, Higher School of Economics, and Ural Federal University have already been enrolled. They are currently working through their internships in Moscow, Chelyabinsk, and Pervouralsk as engineers, white-collar professionals, and managers. ‘The trainees are

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 30, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region’s school libraries are going to get new books published with support from SKB-Bank, the banks press service reports. The bank-sponsored books will be given to libraries as gifts. One of them is a work of fiction called A Blockade-Burned Life and focuses on memories of Leningrad wartime residents who came to the Urals and Yekaterinburg (then known as Sverdlovsk). Some copies have already been presented to local public libraries and Yekaterinburg schools. The book came out in Yekaterinburg in 2015-2016 upon Wartime Leningrad Union’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 30, 2017. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development and Harbin Bank Co Ltd signed a bilateral agreement on trade financing in December 2016; this is part of an earlier cooperation agreement, the bank’s press service reports. Under the terms of the new contract, both parties promise to finance their customers’ export/import transactions with their Chinese partners. Any currency can be used for the purpose, including the Chinese renminbi and U.S. dollars. ‘Chinese banks are known for their cautiousness and a conservative approach to business. I see an

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 30, 2017. Sinara Development is now offering special terms to customers looking to buy a new home in Volgograd. If you sign a sale/purchase agreement before March 31, 2017, you are entitled to a 150,000-ruble discount, Sinara Group’s PR Department reports. Also, special terms are offered to those planning to buy their new home on a mortgage. ‘For those considering a mortgage, Sinara Development came up with a 1,000-ruble discount on every square meter, which will reduce the overall interest burden. If you buy a one-bedroom apartment that is 55 m2 big, for example,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 30, 2017. Rosset’s Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems upgraded the high-frequency choke units at its 220-kilowatt Kholmogorskaya-Kogalym main in Western Siberia, the company press service reports. The goal is to make electric power transfer between Yamalo-Nenetsky and Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Regions more reliable, as this is where the key oil and gas companies are based. Three high-frequency chokes at the 500-kilowatt Kholmogorskaya Station in Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous District were reinforced with suspended insulators to improve their performance in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 30, 2017. 30% to 40% of food items on sale at Sverdlovsk Region supermarkets and grocery stores come from local producers, Deputy Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Vysokinsky said at Sverdlovsk Region Union of Industrialists & Entrepreneurs’ recent meeting. Vysokinsky feels the relatively small share of local goods on the market is one of Sverdlovsk Region’s key problems. ‘The Mid-Urals’ trade turnover amounts to over 1 trillion RUR. We spend 10bn RUR buying building materials, for example, and only 5% to 7% of these are actually made in Sverdlovsk

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, January 30, 2017. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) sold 1,135,500,000 kg of zinc-coated rolled metal goods last year, which was an absolute record in the company’s operating history. ‘The previous record (1,115,700,000 kg) was set at the end of 2014. The plant keeps increasing its zinc-coated produce output for the last fifteen years now. We launched two highly productive continuous galvanizing units at our coating department in 2002 and 2008 and an extension to our cold-roll unit (a continuous galvanizing unit and a combined continuous

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 27, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant recently published a number of new books for children and teens: The Adventures of A Little Tank and Ural Vagon Zavod Tanks came out directly after Legends of Ural Vagon Zavod hit all school libraries in Nizhniy Tagil in September 2016. According to the company press service, the plant’s Executive Director Vladimir Roschupkin was the primary driving and coordinating force for the project. The Adventures of A Little Tank were written by the children’s author Svetlana Lavrova, who also wrote Legends of Ural Vagon

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 27, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) is going to deliver it marsh bulldozer B10MB to a large fishing business in Kamchatka, the plant’s press service reports. The customer is already using a couple of ChTZ’s B-170 bulldozers, as a matter of fact. ‘The vehicle will be used to unload fish onto the shore. The bulldozers are used in the following way: first, the machine prepares the needed section of the shore by making a little hill next to the waterline. Then, a barge full of fish arrives from the trawler and the bulldozer tows

UrBC, Moscow, January 27, 2016. IKEA announced a price decrease on January 26, Vedomosti refers to General Director IKEA Russia Walter Kadnar as saying. Prices will be reduced by 15% to 20% for about 20% of the retailer’s product range, that is, 1,800 different items. For some items, the price decrease will come to 40%. Kadnar points out this is a long-term program rather than just a sale or a promotion campaign. The main factor behind this is the launch of IKEA’s fifth furniture factory in Russia last fall. In fact, most of the price decreases will involve kitchen furniture and wardrobes,

UrBC, Moscow, January 27, 2016. Russians’ factual disposable incomes (the consumer price index-adjusted amount of money left once all the bills and checks have been paid) decreased by 5.9% in 2016 against a year earlier. RIA Novosti refers to Rosstat as stating that the figure went down by 6.1% in December 2016 compared with December 2015 but rose by 50.5% compared with November 2016. In 2015, the income decrease amounted to 3.2% compared with the year 2014 (the data do not take into account the population of either the Crimea or Sevastopol); the figures went up in December 2015 against

UrBC, Moscow, January 27, 2016. As of January 23, 2017, 142,600 customers of Tatfondbank received their insurance payments. The Deposit Insurance Agency reports the overall payments came to 49.65bn RUR (92% of the Agency’s liability). The money was transferred to customers through Sberbank, VTB 24, Rosselkhozbank, Bank Otkrytiye, and AK BARS Bank as the Agency’s agent banks. The Bank of Russia imposed temporary administration on Tatfondbank on December 15 and put a three-month ban on meeting creditors’ claims. The ban had to do with the fact that creditors’ existing claims were not met on

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, January 26, 2017. MMK Group’s steel output rose by 2.5% in 2016 compared with one year earlier and reached 12,500,000,000 kg. The Group’s overall sales rose by 3.4% and reached 11,600,000,000 kg. ‘Even though the home market’s steel demand dropped last year against the year 2015, this was completely set off by our export market sales. The company’s exports rose by 19.4% in 2016 compared with 2015 and made up 27.3% of all our sales,’ MMK says. The increase in exports did not bring about any changes in the range of products the company makes: MMK’s share

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2017. EVRAZ Holding’s Nizhniy Tagil Integrated Metallurgical Works (NTMK) recently coordinated a blast-furnace workers’ workshop, with twenty representatives of Russia’s leading metallurgical enterprises coming on site, the company press service reports. Workers from Novolipetsk Metallurgical Works, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, Mechel, Severstal, Tulachermet, EVRAZ Holding’s West-Siberian Metallurgical Works, and EVRAZ Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise took part in the workshop. The goal is to provide an experience-sharing environment

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2017. ChTPZ Group’s SOT recently produced an experimental batch of seamless pipe bends (diameter: 820 mm; layer thickness: 12 mm), the Group’s PR Department reports. The new products are suitable for various pipe types (PN: up to 16 MPa, temperature: -70 to + 450 degrees centigrade) used for steam, hot water, natural gas, and oil transfer. Large-diameter pipe bends are made from the Group’s Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant’s seamless ingots (made from 09G2S steel). The plant intends to make 85,000 kg (250 units) a year.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2017. Yekaterinburg’s Akademicheskiy District proved the most frequently googled location when it comes to buying a new home in Yekaterinburg, the leading web portal on Russian housing market N1 reports. Akademichesky was looked up in 7.5% of cases when surfers were trying to find a new home in Yekaterinburg online. Botanichesky District and centrally located apartments got looked up in less than 3.5% and less than 2.1% of cases, respectively. Existing home market trends look the same: Akademicheskiy is the second most searched-for location, looked up in 6% of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2017. Sverdlovsk Region Government officials will now be using MegaFon numbers for work: the telecommunications provider reports the company won a tender to this effect. ‘In the end of the e-auction, MegaFon proved the winning bidder that will be the only carrier to provide government officials with good quality mobile connection and high-speed Internet connection everywhere, including business trips. All the phone numbers themselves will remain the same as before, as, under the terms of the contract, the government’s 110 officials retained their numbers

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 26, 2017. Koltsovo Airport Customs report the number of passengers on international flights went down by nearly 30%, down to 1,060,000 people, the Customs’ Deputy Head Vladimir Zyabko announced at a press conference. ‘At the same time, passenger traffic rose by 50% during New Year break compared with early January 2016. The number of flights operated in the first week of January also increased by 12%,’ he said. Around 80% of all international flights operated in Ural Federal District get operated through Koltsovo Airport, with over twenty air carriers involved.