UrBC, Moscow, December 11, 2015. The overall number of cars imported to Russia between January and October 2015 decreased by 52% (down to 288,000 units) compared with a year earlier, Avtostat reports. The number of cars imported from the CIS member states came to 11,700, that of cars imported from the rest of the world came to 276,300. The automobiles’ consolidated cost amounted to $5.38bn. The imported truck market shrank even more: only 16,700 trucks were imported into the country, down 69.5% on a year earlier. Their total cost was estimated at $672.1m. As for the export figures, these

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 11, 2015. Local doctors’ pay went down by 1.5% between October 2014 and October 2015, Sverdlovskstat reports. Salaries in the healthcare sector decreased by 0.2% compared with the start of the year, with the average monthly pay dropping down to 29,453 RUR. Last year, the average pay figures stood at over 30,000 RUR a month. In the meantime, salaries in the scientific research sector and in the academia also declined by 3.1%, while those in the construction sector declined by 1.3% over the last twelve months.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 11, 2015. The number of vacancies on Yekaterinburg job market went down by 15% in November 2015 compared with a year earlier, while the number of CVs rose by 21%, Superjob.ru reports. The number of vacancies in the logistics and maintenance sector decreased by 30% compared with a year earlier, that in the law sector by 27%. At the same time, there are now 28% more job openings in marketing and advertising and 13% more in the purchasing sector. Also, the number of vacancies rose by 17% in the insurance sector, by 14% in the raw stuffs industry, and by 10% in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 11, 2015. Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) signed a dealership agreement with Peru-based Vostok-Sur Export-Import. The company will be in charge of supplying tractors to Peru, the corporation’s press service reports. The contract was signed in Peru. Under the agreement, the dealer will now promote Chelyabinsk vehicles on the Peruvian market and provide after-sale services. Bulldozers and tractors will be shipped to South Africa in sea containers, which will cut delivery costs and guarantee the tractors arrive safe

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, December 10, 2015. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won the Priority 2015 Award, the national import substitution prize. The event coordinators commented on MMK’s great contribution to development and production of competitive metal goods and successful substitution of imported products on the home market, the company reports. MMK has been getting its new steel types certified by car-makers and expanding its share of this market for a few years now. As a result, despite the automobile industry’s problems, MMK proved this year’s leading

UrBC, Moscow, December 10, 2015. The number of Russian tour operators present on the international market dropped by 69% this year, Interfax refers to President of the Association of Russian Tour Operators Dmitri Gorin as saying. ‘There were 2,050 such companies before the recession broke out; there are only 650 left now, down 69% on a year earlier, not to mention the number of travel agents, which is declining as well,’ Gorin said. Gorin expects the market to keep shrinking next year as well. ‘Under the best-case scenario, some 500 companies will survive, under the worst-case one, there will

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 10, 2015. New homes currently under construction in Yekaterinburg amount to 2.496m m2 altogether, which is 12.6% less than in the last quarter of 2014, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. Economy class homes amount to 1.368m m2 all in all (down 26% on a year earlier), comfort plus homes amount to 1.063m m2 (+15%), business class homes amount to 21,000 m2 (+126%), and elite homes amount to 15,000 m2 (the same as last year). The chamber’s analysts feel the decrease in the overall amount of new housing has to do with the customers’ deteriorating paying capacity and

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 10, 2015. As of December 7, 2015, the average price of a square meter of an apartment for sale on Yekaterinburg existing homes market came to 71,029 RUR, down 6.8% on a year earlier, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. The market supply has remained at its all-time high for four months now: there are currently over 11,500 apartments and over 2,000 rooms in communal apartments for sale at the chamber’s database alone. Because of the low demand, it still takes quite a while – four to five and a half months – to make a sale. Prices dropped most for apartments in the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 10, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil coordinated its annual defense and emergencies drill contest to sum up this year. According to the corporation’s press service, the event’s main goal is improvements in the quality of personnel protection at the company’s member enterprises. ‘Ural Vagon Zavod’s Civil Defense & Emergencies Administration looked into how efficient the enterprises’ civil defense measures are and how well the staff are instructed in how to act in a civil or military emergency. They also checked how ready the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 10, 2015. Kamensk Uralsky Foundry Plant hosted this year’s last meeting of the job competence committee which is in charge of giving appraisals to managers as well as white- and blue-collar workers after one year in a particular job position, the company press service reports. The committee checked whether the employees’ qualifications and skills were relevant for their job position. The appraisal procedure involved workers from the Maintenance Department: the leading expert, senior engineers, and the legal counsel. The department’s head Sergei Kaisin provided

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 9, 2015. 16,098 mortgages were issued to customers by Sverdlovsk Region-based banks between January and September 2015, Deputy Chair of Ural Bankers’ Union Evgeniy Bolotin said at a press conference. ‘The number of mortgage loans dropped by 32.1% compared with a year earlier, their overall amount decreased by 36.7%. The figure came to 25.8bn RUR altogether,’ Bolotin said. According to Bolotin, the average mortgage amount also shrank considerably this year.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 9, 2015. Office rent grew 8% to 32% cheaper in Yekaterinburg this year, depending on the market segment, Ural Real Estate Chamber reports. The average monthly rent dropped by 18% compared with Q4’14 for Class A office space and so currently amounts to 1000 RUR to 1,400 RUR per m2; that for Class B+ office spacedropped by 21%, down to 920 RUR per m2, that for Class B office space dropped by 8%, down to 820 RUR per m2, and that of Class C office space dropped by 32%, down to 540 RUR per m2. The chamber’s analysts report the number of vacant Class A offices went

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 9, 2015. The average per-square-meter price of a new home comes to 62,800 RUR in Yekaterinburg at the moment, which is 2% less than a year earlier (64,100 RUR). Also, the average price of an apartment also decreased by 13% and currently comes to 3,233,000 RUR, a report by N1.RU and E1.Nedvizhimost states. Prices went down because homes in new apartment buildings tend to be smaller: their area shrank from 60 m2 to 51 m2 on average in the last year. These are the two-bedroom apartments whose size changed the most, N1.RU reports: these grew, on average, 13% smaller

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 9, 2015. A group of delegates from the oil-producing company Rosneft paid a visit to Seversky Pipe Plant (a member enterprise of Pipe Metallurgical Company/TMK), TMK press service reports. The delegates’ main goal was to look at the outcomes of a recent large-scale reconstruction, including a new electric steel-smelting facility and a FQM pipe-rolling facility. The delegation comprised head plant and daughter companies’ representatives and experts from Rosneft’s scientific research and design institutes. Rosneft is TMK’s key customer and buys around half a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 9, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant in Nizhniy Tagil hosted its 36th trade union conference. The event was attended by 363 delegates, representatives of the plant’s and the corporation’s management, Chair of the All-Russian Defense Industry Workers’ Trade Union Andrel Chekmenev, Chair of Sverdlovsk Region Trade Union Federation Andrei Vetluzhskikh, and Mayor of Nizhniy Tagil Sergei Nosov. ‘The company management is fully aware of the trade union movement’s importance. This is exactly why we have always been able to reach a compromise and to keep

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 8, 2015. The average bribe comes to 80,000 RUR in Sverdlovsk Region, head of the public prosecution authorities’ anti-corruption division Vladimir Kurochkin said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. Kurochkin said 563 corruption-related crimes were uncovered in the area between January and September 2015, which was 18% less than a year earlier; in seventy-four cases, the crime was to do with bribe-taking. ‘The overall corruption-related damage is estimated at 416m RUR. 32m RUR were reinstituted voluntarily by the accused and 304m RUR worth of assets got seized

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 8, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region is not one of Russian constituencies that are ‘successful tourist territories’, the Information Communications Center Rating reports. ‘Our center relied on the opinions shared by the expert community, namely, those from Otdykh V Rossiyi Media Group (the company behind the magazine on domestic travel by the same name) and the online portals Russian Tourism and Tourism Investments. The Russian constituencies were evaluated on the basis of nine different criteria, including the overall number of hotel rooms per capita, the number of locals

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 8, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant recently hosted the 3d All-Russian Blue-Collar Youth Education Forum on its premises. The company press service reports participants spoke about the vital problem young blue-collar workers are facing these days learned about Sverdlovsk Region’s enterprises from informative presentations, and did a lot of teamwork. Members of the two winning teams can now enjoy the unique internship opportunity offered by Ural Vagon Zavod and EVRAZ NTMK, Nizhniy Tagil’s primary employers. The practical tasks given to the forum

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 8, 2015. Chelyabinsk-based Electromash (a member enterprise of Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation) is trying to introduce Total Production Maintenance principles at the plant. The company press service says the system is being launched by work group leaders and members at all the primary production departments, with help from maintenance mechanics and the Lean Production launch group. ‘The secret behind TPM is that it does away with treating daily checkups and minor, seemingly unimportant faults as a formality. It is exactly these things that actually cause prolonged

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 8, 2015. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s Director-General Oleg Sienko presented the company’s new, 23.5-ton-force strong 18-555 bogie to President of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov. According to the company press service, the bogie is meant to be part of lightweight cargo railcars where the more expensive heavy-duty bogies are not necessary. The new product could prove indispensable for regular railcars, platform cars, and tank cars. The bogie’s other advantage lies in reduced impact on the railway infrastructure, which means operation and maintenance of railways