UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 29, 2016. 21,835 new automobiles were sold in Yekaterinburg in January through August 2016, which was 24% less than one year earlier, Auto-Dealer-Yekaterinburg reports. Sales dropped by a quarter in August, with sales figures at 3,088 new cars. This is the second best month for the industry this year so far, only June sales (3,183 cars) looked better. Lada remains the market leader and keeps leaving its rivals behind. Renault is gradually outstripping Toyota as the most popular foreign brand. Additionally, Hyundai also made it to the list of top three best

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 29, 2016. Metcombank is now using National Credit History Bureau’s data on a particular loan applicant in its own decision-making system, the bank’s press service reports. The mathematical model that the bank’s scoring system is based upon was designed by the company FICO. Incorporating the Bureau’s data in their own procedures will protect the bank against unscrupulous borrowers, enhance retail lending efficiency, and provide better service for bona fide customers. ‘The Bureau’s industrial scoring test results proved a very efficient tool in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 29, 2016. Ural Vagon Zakod Corporation presented its transportable armored vehicle repair depot at the 2nd International ADEX 2016 Exhibition in Azerbaijan, the company press service reports. The company Director-General Oleg Sienko told Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev about their new product. President Aliyev looked at the portable wind machine that supplies electric power for the depot and went to the pavilion where a life-size sample of the corporation’s T-72 tank with a new fire control system is on display. ‘Our repair depot is a full-fledged,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) inspected 7,700 kg of fish in the first half of 2016; 2,200 kg, or 28.7% of these failed quality tests, the agency’s press service reports. For one, 500 kg of fish failed to comply with normative requirements and 1,600 kg did not have the right identification stamps; also, 50 kg of fish were adulterated. Rospotrebnadzor officers inspected, among other things, 1,900 cans of fish, of which 700 cans failed quality tests (including the 600 cans that did not comply with the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) inspected 16,300 kg of dairy foods in the first half of 2016; 2,500 kg, or 15.1% of these failed quality tests (compared with 24.6% in the first half of 2015), the agency’s press service reports. ‘The faulty items are the same ones as last year: these are the foods that fail to comply with the existing normative requirements, technological quality requirements, and adulteration checks,’ the press service says. Rospotrebnadzor picked and inspected 316 dairy food samples

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. Asking prices have decreased by 3.4% on Yekaterinburg existing home market since the start of the year. The figures kept going down in the first five months of the year and stopped declining by the beginning of summer, Ural Real Estate Chamber’s research findings indicate. As of September 26, 2016, the average per-square-meter asking price came to 68,359 RUR, which was 5.6% less than one year earlier and 10.9% less than in February 2015 (the price peak so far). The price decrease was most noticeable in the city’s remotest and least expensive locations,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. EVRAZ Cup football championship was held among children born in 2008 and 2009 in Nizhniy Tagil for the first time this year, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s press office reports. The event came after a company championship involving the holding’s employees that is held in Kachkanar, Sverdlovsk Region, every year. Eight teams from three Sverdlovsk Region towns (Verkhnyaya Salda, Kachkanar, Nizhniy Tagil) competed against one another, with some twenty games held at Vysokogorets Stadium in the course of one day. In between the games, anyone could try to score with

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 28, 2016. Tankprom 3, an All-Russian research-to-practice conference, will be held at Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Culture Palace in Nizhniy Tagil on October 4-6. The conference is part of special celebrations: the corporation’s head plant was founded eighty years ago this month, the company press service reports. The event is coordinated by Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation and co-organized by Moscow-based Amnit (an association for the development of scientific and technological museums), S. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2016. Sverdlovsk Region’s investigative authorities registered 267 crimes related to Article 145.1 of Russia’s Criminal Code (non-payment of wages/salaries for over two months) in the first half of the year, which exceeded the number for the first half of 2015 by 64%, Sverdlovsk Region Prosecutor’s Office reports. 70% of registered crimes were detected due to employees filing their complaints. Thirty-seven criminal lawsuits were instituted as a result (compared with twenty-seven one year earlier). ‘Particularly worrying is the fact that some of the criminal

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2016. ChTPZ Group shipped its first 3,300,000 kg of large-diameter pipes for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the company press service reports. The solemn shipping ceremony took place in Chelyabinsk and was attended by the Group’s shareholders Andrei Komarov and Alexander Fedorov, CEO Nord Stream 2 AG Matthias Warnig and Chief Project Officer Henning Kothe, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky, Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant’s Director-General Alexander Grumman, and Magnitogorsk Iron & Metallurgical Works DG Pavel Shilyayev. The first set of pipes

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2016. EVRAZ Holding’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (EVRAZ KGOK) is now completing the seasonal repairs of railroad conduits: this year’s plan is to replace some 8km of railroads and about twenty turnout switches, the holding’s press office reports. The repairs and replacements are being worked on by the company rail vehicle depot. For one, new rails have been installed and drainage points cleaned at the Main Quarry premises. The same will be done at the processing and agglomeration plants by the end of October. ‘Six different kinds of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2016. EVRAZ Holding keeps working to switch Boiler 9 at its Zapsib Power Station in Siberia to secondary energy resources (coke-oven and blast-furnace gases), EVRAZ Holding Siberia’s press office reports. Switching is expected to reduce boiler maintenance costs, avoid idle times, increase electric power output by nearly 10%, and increase the station’s energy efficiency. The upgrades will also result in lower emissions and will thus improve the area’s environmental status. EVRAZ Holding invested some 950m RUR in the project. ‘Energy spending is part of our

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 27, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Kamensk-Uralsky Foundry Plant (KULZ) unveiled a special monument, an airplane, on Machine-Builder’s Day, the company press service reports. ‘Our full-cycle production plant deals in everything from casting to mechanical treatment to assembly and supplies parts and components for airborne and terrestrial vehicles. One such vehicle sample is now installed next to the plant entrance. Even though there are still a lot of things to do around the monument and the surrounding patch, the main and the most difficult part of the

UrBC, Moscow, September 26, 2016. Russia’s Finance Ministry suggested not paying any pensions to people who’ve reached the retirement age but are still employed and earn over 500,000 RUR a year, Kommersant reports. They also have some less harsh proposals, with no-pension threshold at over 1m RUR a year. The Finance Ministry also recommends canceling the flat payment of 4,559 RUR a month for those whose income exceeds 2.5 living wages (22,000 RUR a month). The goal is to keep the federal budget balanced in 2017-2019. According to the officials, the no-pension amendment for those with income

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 26, 2016. Labor productivity was estimated at 4.238m RUR per worker at Unako Group’s Urals Energy Construction Company last year, which was under half the amount for the year 2014 (9.147m RUR), the company’s accounting report states. Per-worker output dropped from 624,178 RUR down to 276,956 RUR. Urals Energy Construction Company is based in Yekaterinburg. The company deals in construction and repairs of electric mains and 0.4- to 500-kilowatt substations.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 26, 2016. Ural public prosecution authorities for transportation detected some 2,000 labor rights violations in railway, air-, and water-borne traffic organizations in the first half of the year, their press service reports. The authorities issued 725 protests and 108 reports and made 198 people face disciplinary and administrative liability.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 26, 2016. Verknyaya Tura’s primary employer Verkhneturinsky Machine-Building Plant now uses MegaFon as its corporate telecommunications provider, the company press service reports. Switching to MegaFon means the plant can now halve its mobile communication expenses. The decision to do business together was announced by MegaFon and the plant on the eve of Machine-Builder’s Day. ‘The company works with numerous partners throughout Russia as well as abroad; these partners appreciate the quality of our produce and our meeting contractual obligations. To make sure

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 26, 2016. The world’s leading independent auditor, the Swiss company SGS certified Mikheyevsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise’s quality management systems for compliance with international standards, Russian Copper Company’s press service reports. ‘SGS has worked with such international giants as Bayer, Boeing, and Siemens in the past, as well as with the Russian companies Gazprom and Lukoil. Russian Copper Company’s asset is now also among its clients. These certificates prove that Mikheyevsky is one of Russia’s most advanced ore mining and processing

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 23, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Omsk-based employees got local and national awards on the eve of Machine-Builder’s Day, the company press service reports. Around a hundred workers employed at Omsk industrial enterprises were awarded all in all, including head of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Omsktransmash Crossing Equipment Department Natalya Volgina. The solemn awarding ceremony took place at P.I. Baranov Club’s Assembly Hall on September 20. The local industrial community’s most renowned members, heads of industrial enterprises, and city council and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 23, 2016. The telecommunications provider MegaFon is launching its 4G+ options in Novouralsk on the eve of All-Russian Internet Day. According to the company press service, their super-fast mobile Internet connection is now available in every part of the town, so another 80,000 people in the Mid-Urals area can now enjoy the benefits of LTE. ‘4G+ means it takes our subscribers a great deal less time to download bulky bits of data. A 4G+ user will only need eight minutes, at the most, to get a 1.5 Gb movie downloaded. Compare this with some twenty minutes in a 3G