UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 14, 2016. 28.2% out of seventy-one meat and dairy food samples tested in Sverdlovsk Region in the three quarters of the year either failed to meet technical regulations or turned out to be adulterated. Deputy Head of Rosselkhoznadzor’s Sverdlovsk Region division Natalya Bannikova said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg that nine out of twenty-eight companies that provided the samples were actually located outside Sverdlovsk Region. ‘100% of food samples provided by these nine businesses were adulterated, which means Sverdlovsk Region producers offer better

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 14, 2016. 43,000 kg of sanctioned foods had to be crushed and disposed of in Sverdlovsk Region in the nine months of the year (compared with 500 kg in the entire year 2015), Head of Rosselkhoznadzor’s Sverdlovsk Region division Igor Tukhbatov said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. Mostly, these were apples, pears, and Cabbage imported from (mainly) Poland and Turkey. Also, some of the sanctioned items were first sent to Belarus and then imported to Russia as allegedly Byelorussian foods. ‘It turns out Belarus is no longer a land-locked country, judging by

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2016. Ural Vagon Zaiod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil hosted a workshop on Risk Management. The workshop was attended by 120 employees from the company’s various divisions, the corporation’s press service reports. The event was coordinated by the plant’s Risk Management & Internal Control Department with the goal of improving the plant managers’ and employees’ risk management skills. ‘We worked with four thirty-people teams, who were explained that risk prevention is much easier and considerably less resource-consuming than dealing with the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2016. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD) issued nearly two times as many bank guarantees in accordance with the Federal Act 44 FZ in the third quarter of the year as in the previous quarter, the bank’s press service reports. The bank also made getting these bank guarantees (44 FZ, 223 FZ, and 615 PP) easier, as applicants only need to subscribe to the bank’s Tender Express package once in order to be eligible to apply for guarantees within a set money limit as many times as they need to; the entire procedure only takes four hours.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2016. Locals approved of Southern Urals-based Mikheyevsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise expansion project in the course of public hearings in Chelyabinsk Region’s Varnensky and Kartalinsky Districts on November 8, Russian Copper Company’s press service reports. Varna and Kartaly town council representatives, heads of local medical and educational establishments, and Chelyabinsk Region locals - some three hundred people all in all - came to take part in the hearings. The hearings participants were shown project documentation for the expansion jobs

UrBC, Moscow, November 11, 2016. The Italian company Enel is planning to sell its Enel Russia assets (Reftinskaya, Sredneuralskaya, Nevinnomysskaya, and Konakovskaya Power Stations), Vedomosti reports. The company is currently negotiating the sale with the state-owned Inter RAO. Enel bought its share in Enel Russia (then known as OGK-5) for 85bn RUR (approximately 2.4bn EUR) in 2007. The Italian company was the first foreign business to invest in Russia’s energy industry. Based on MICEX quotations, the shareholding currently costs ten times less than at the time of purchase: 17.5bn RUR, or

UrBC, Moscow, November 11, 2016. The number of Russians traveling abroad this year is going to drop by about 20% compared with a year earlier, RIA Novosti refers to Head of Rostourism Oleg Safonov as saying. ‘Based on our experts’ estimates, our international traffic shrank by some 20%,’ Safonov said. ‘These are preliminary estimates, we have no data at hand at the moment, since with the way statistics works, the actual figures for the entire year will be available next July. We can see the general trend and analyze the current situation, however, and this is what forecast we can come up with

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, November 11, 2016. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won the national Priority 2016 Prize in Metallurgy, the company’s press service reports. The panel of judges decided MMK deserved this great prize for the development and production of highly durable, wear-resistant MAGSTRONG steels. MMK’s MAGSTRONG steels are used for making hot-rolled metal sheets and ready metal goods that are fully comparable with their foreign counterparts. MAGSTRONG steels come as import substitution of foreign rolled metal sheets on the home market; their mechanical

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2016. New, robot-aided equipment is now getting assembled at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil, the company press service reports. The goal is to give up on manual labor and reduce the time needed to treat sole-bars and bolsters for the plant’s railcar bogies. ‘The equipment manufacturers are in charge of the assembly jobs, while Ural Vagon Zavod team is responsible for tech support. Our Technological Equipment Repairs Department workers are also engaged in ancillary tasks such as welding, craning, and other jobs. It is reported that

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2016. Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) and Metalloinvest signed a formula-pricing agreement for hot briquetted iron supply, TMK PR Department reports. The contract was signed by TMK Director-General Alexander Shiryayev and Metalloinvest Director-General Andrei Varichev. The agreement will be valid for a year and can then get renewed. Under the terms of the contract, the price formula will depend on the metallurgical raw stuff price indicators on the global and Russian markets. It has been agreed that TMK will receive HBI shipments from Metalloinvest’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2016. Federal Grid Company United Energy Systems is about to complete the overall reconstruction of its 500 kilowatt Shagol Power Substation in the Southern Urals, the company press service reports. ‘An automatic process control system will get installed at the station by the end of the year. Also, overhauls were given to our 220 and 500 kilowatt outdoor switchgear appliances, which is expected to ensure uninterrupted power supply from Chelyabinsk and South Ural Power Stations,’ the press service says. This year, a new 56.8 MVAr static capacitor bank was also

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2016. Sinara Group’s Sinara Development, the general contractor for the reconstruction of Yekaterinburg Arena Stadium in time for the World Cup 2018, got the external roof ring completely assembled, the Group’s press service reports. The entire structure weighs 2,500,000 kg; the last section of the roof, which was 112,000 kg heavy, got inserted above the southern spectator stand. The external roof ring is 685m long, is placed at the height of 39.5m, rests on 8 pylons and consists of 27 sections made of highly durable steel. A special 750,000-kg-strong tracked

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 10, 2016. Some twenty high school students went on a guided tour of Russian Copper Company’s Kyshtym Copper Electrolysis Plant as part of their job counseling program, the company press service reports. This is the second time Russian Copper Company has organized TechnoTour for its employees’ children. Kyshtym Copper Electrolysis Plant is the final link in the company’s production chain, a plant making copper wire rods, copper cathodes, and high karat gold and silver. This year’s TechnoTour was targeted at high school students who will have to decide on their

UrBC, Moscow, November 9, 2016. The awarding ceremony of Russian Metal Goods Suppliers’ Union took place in Moscow during the recent Metal Week. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works’ MMK Trading House was Best-Developing Sales Network, just like last year. In 2015, MMK Trading House sold over 1,000,000,000kg of metal goods on domestic market, which was 21% better than in the year 2014. Also, the company’s warehouse facility in Schelkovo proved Russia’s Best Metal Goods Service Center 2016 because of its leadership in rolled metal sheet recycling outputs. Finally, MMK Trading House division in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 9, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s department heads and directors are currently undergoing a continuous professional development course (dubbed Executives’ School) on the head plant’s premises, the company press service reports. For the next seven months, twenty students on the course will work on four training modules (HR Management, Accounting, Lean Production, and Production Organization) every Friday and Saturday. A certificate will be issued to the course participants upon each module’s completion. The training sessions and workshops will be conducted

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 9, 2016. Four employees of EVRAZ Holding Siberia division won silver at the national blue-collar job championship WorldSkills Hi Tech, the company press service reports. EVRAZ Holding’s West Siberian Metallurgical Works’ electric repair mechanic Evgeny Tyutyunnik came second in Wiring; the plant’s electronic equipment engineers Dmitri Fitz and Maxim Nutrikhin won silver in Mechatronics; Evrazruda’s electric/gas welder Alexei Shchitov won the second prize in Welding Technologies. ‘We trained quite hard for this contest. The corporate round of the WorldSkills

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 9, 2016. The number of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s e-banking users rose by 22% between September 2015 and September 2016, the bank’s press service reports. Additionally, the number of online transactions (including those involving information services) went up by 64%. This means the bank’s private customers prefer to handle their finances without setting foot outside their homes increasingly more often. According to the bank’s data, customers who have salary accounts with the UBRD use online banking services more often than other customer

UrBC, Moscow, November 9, 2016. The amount of goods imported to Russia between January and October 2016 decreased by 1% compared with one year earlier and thus came to $131.5bn RUR, in monetary terms, RIA Novosti refers to the Federal Customs Service as stating. In October, imports amounted to $15.611bn, which exceeded the figures for the previous month by 1%. Imports from countries other than the CIS member states amounted to $132.84bn RUR in January-October 2016.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 9, 2016. When it comes to theft of electronic equipment in Sverdlovsk Region-based offices, crime detection rate went from 85.7% in 2015 down to 80% in 2016, Yekaterinburg’s Internal Affairs Ministry division refers to their Sverdlovsk Region HQ as stating. All in all, ten criminal lawsuits were instituted in Yekaterinburg concerning office equipment theft in the last nine months, compared with fourteen cases last year. The division does not specify how many complaints have actually been placed with the authorities this year so far, and how many claims got

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 8, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s ChTZ Uraltrac is now working to improve its production facilities and switch to independent heat supply for its tractor-making and engine-manufacturing facilities. ‘First, we need to focus on the engineering and design work and put up boiler plants that will be powerful enough to provide heating and hot water supply to our maintenance buildings and offices. We then need to get the production facilities’ heating appliances reconstructed and introduce gas-fueled heaters there,’ the press service says. The company is now