UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 4, 2015. According to Sverdlovskstat, the overall unemployment rate stood at 6.4% in July 2015, while the number of those without a job rose by 7.7%. 146,152 people were registered as jobless in July 2015, compared with 134,900 people a year earlier. There are 2,284,512 people of working age in the constituency, as of July 2015, of whom 2,138,360 people have jobs. Sverdlovsk Region Labor & Employment Department reports seventy-five companies have informed them of upcoming layoffs since the start of the year. Thirty-five companies are already making a number of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 4, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporations is going to cover tuition fees of forty-four students (the company’s prospective employees) who got into colleges in Yekaterinburg, Saint Petersburg, Nizhniy Tagil, Novouralsk, and Lesnoy that are part of Uralvagonzavod Corporate University, the company press service reports. ‘These work-incentive programs are a school-leaver’s chance to get into a top-ranking college and our company’s chance to get a highly skilled employee for the job it needs. Our current employees’ children have a priority in the distribution of the funding

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 3, 2015. Kazakhstan Aselsan Engineering is going to present its products at the international arms exhibition Russia Arms Expo this year, the exhibition website informs. ‘Kazakhstan Aselsan Engineering specializes in electronic circuit cards that can be used in a variety of mechanisms ranging from submarines to spaceships. The company also makes, sells, and distributes electronic optical devices such as daytime- and night-viewing devices, TV appliances, and aiming devices. This year, RAE military vehicle and weaponry demonstrations will be performed in the form of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 3, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s Rubtsovsky subsidiary won in the annual Altay Territory’s Best Industrial Enterprise Contest for the first time this year, the corporation’s press service reports. The company’s outstanding performance in 2014 secured it the first prize as a defense enterprise with over 250 employees. ‘We hope this victory will motivate Rubtsovsky to keep on expanding its production output and master new, promising and modern products as well as introduce new technologies,’ a letter sent by Altay Territory Government

UrBC, Nizhniy Tagil, August 3, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation proved one of Russia’s top twenty socially responsible companies in July 2015. The recent joint project with Komsomolskaya Pravda-Ural was one of the factors that helped the company retain its CSR leadership position, their press service reports. The Top20 rating was created by Russia's Agency for Political and Economic Communications (APEC) and featured such giants as Gazprom, Russian Raiwlays, Rosneft, and Lukoil. Rating positions 11 to 20 were mostly assigned to metallurgical and O&G companies. ‘Uralvagonzavod

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 3, 2015. The price of a liter of gasoline for purchase in Yekaterinburg went up from 31.66 RUR to 33.97 RUR between July 20 and July 26,2015, Rosstat reports. In early July, the average price of AI 92 came to 32.95 RUR per liter, that of AI 95 to 35.33 RUR per liter, and that of diesel fuel to 34.65 RUR per liter. Fuel prices have been rising very noticeably over the last four weeks: the average price per liter was 32.76 RUR as recently as at the beginning of June (31.86 RUR for AI 92 and 34.26 RUR for AI 95).

UrBC, Moscow, August 3, 2015. Russian household appliances market sagged by a whopping 35% in the first half of the year, Vedomosti refers to Candy Hoover as reporting. The demand mostly dropped for inexpensively and medium-priced goods, with TV screen sales plummeting the most, that is, by 40% compared to the start of the year. As it happens, the demand for household goods soared overnight following the drastic fall of the Russian ruble in late 2014.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 31, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration court declared Sredneuralskaya poultry factory insolvent on July 29, Kommersant refers to a court representative as saying. The court stated the factory should undergo bankruptcy proceedings for a period of six months, with the company’s former manager Timur Latypov as the trustee in bankruptcy. Sredneuralskaya is registered in the town of Verkhnyaya Pyshma and is 100% Sverdlovsk Region Government-owned. The factory was placed under supervision on April 10, 2015 following Sberbank’s demand that the company be declared

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 31, 2015. The number of the unemployed in Sverdlovsk Region came to 32,528 people on July 1, 2015 (against 27,088 people a year earlier), the Labor & Employment Department reports. 40,828 people on the lookout for jobs got registered with the local employment services by the start of the month, 38,769 of them with no current employment. The registered unemployment rate thus came to 1.43% (compared with 1.17% a year earlier). Forty-eight companies informed the employment agencies in the first half of the year that they were planning to lay off 5,962 people. 145

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 31, 2015. The overall amount of past-due payments on loans issued to Sverdlovsk Region’s residents rose by 2bn RUR in the first half of 2015, the Central Bank’s local division reports. As of July 1, 2015, this figure stood at around 8.3bn RUR (compared with 6.5bn RUR on January 1). The overall amount of overdue debt owed to banks by non-financial institutions came to 5.8bn RUR (plus 29.5m RUR in foreign currency) on July 1.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 31, 2015. Some representatives of Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) took part in a business conference with their potential partners at Omsk Chamber of Commerce & Industry, the corporation’s press service reports. The round table discussion gathered together leading industrial and research experts who presented their developments in the fields of power equipment and welding and forging technologies. Conference delegates demonstrated the potential of their metal-cutting devices made from superalloys, induction heating units,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 31, 2015. All the work at Staratel Range in Nizhniy Tagil, done in preparation for the 10th International Russia Arms Expo 2015 Exhibition is nearly complete, the event website states. The news was announced at Sverdlovsk Region Exhibition Coordination Committee meeting; Mayor of Nizhniy Tagil Sergey Nosov said all the sports and culture facilities as well as highways and park-and-ride lots were being reconstructed in time for the opening. Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s Advertising & PR Director Alexander Bachurin said the company would be very noticeably present

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July29, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to process an insolvency application involving Nizhniy Tagil-based Vysokogorsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise/VGOK, the court reports. The application was submitted by OOO Teploservis on July 17, 2015. It is not yet clear how big the plaintiff’s claims are. VGOK used to be a part of EVRAZ Holding until September 2013 and was then sold to Ural Group, owned by Vladislav Shatsillo. The enterprise now runs three mines: Magnetitovaya, Yestyuninskaya, and Yuzhnay, as well as an open-pit mine, a processing facility, a

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 30, 2015. A Russian citizen living in Sverdlovsk Region spends an average of 39,000 RUR on international travel this summer (up 3,000 RUR on a year earlier), Director of Ural Tourism Association Mikhail Maltsev announced at a press conference. ‘This is the average price of a week’s hotel stay and a round trip per person, provided the flight departs from Yekaterinburg. Remarkably, the figure is the same regardless of whether one flies to Europe or Turkey or Egypt,’ he said. Maltsev said the average price of a hotel stay in Russia and a domestic flight currently came

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 30, 2015. 431 instances of corruption-related crimes were registered in Sverdlovsk Region in the first half of 2015, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 15%, head of Sverdlovsk Region Prosecution Service’s Anti-Corruption Enforcement division Vladimir Kurochkin announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. Kurochkin said fifty-five cases out of these involved charges of bribe-taking (Article 290 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code), twenty-two involved charges of abuse of power (Article 285), and some of them – charges of fraud (Article 159). 195

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 30, 2015. In the first half of 2015, Yekaterinburg hotels were 52% booked, on average, the city council refers to Deputy Mayor for Commodity Market & Services Vladimir Bolikov as stating. Bolikov said there were currently 111 hotels operating in Yekaterinburg. ‘The city is quite prepared to host various events comfortably. All of the city’s hotels are being assigned star categories at the moment,’ he said in the course of Open Studio. Yekaterinburg on Channel 41-Domashniy. The official also spoke about the growing segment of economy class hotels. At the moment,

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 30, 2015. Uralvagonzavod Corporation/UVZ keeps working on a new children’s playground located on the premises of I.V. Okunev Palace of Culture in Nizhniy Tagil, the company press service reports. Four out of eight playground sections have already been assembled, and the work is about to begin for the remaining four. Every section is complete with sports and games implements made from safe materials that meet all the government standards. ‘A playground will be complemented by a stage for large-scale festive events, an electric cart range to teach children the traffic

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 29, 2015. The actual incomes of people living in Sverdlovsk Region declined by 5.7% in the first half of 2015 compared with the first half of 2014, head of the Federal State Statistics Service’s local division Elena Kutina announced at a press conference. ‘Their nominal monthly income actually went up by 9.2% compared with the first half of 2014 and amounted to 32,663 RUR per capita against 29,949 RUR a year earlier,’ she said. Kutina said locals directed most of their income (81%) to buying goods and services. 7.1% more money was spent on these in the first half of

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 29, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region’s retail trade turnover dropped by 10% in the first half of the year, head of the Federal State Statistics Service’s local division Elena Kutina announced at a press conference. ‘This is a rather noticeable decline observable in all of the Russian Federation’s constituencies. Food items sales decreased by 10.8%, non-food items sales by 9.3%. In June, the per capita amount of sold commodity goods was 20,230 RUR, compared with 19,286 RUR a year earlier: this signals an increase in prices or a decrease in the population’s buying capacity,’

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 29, 2015. Locals are no longer investing in the less expensive foreign property in Bulgaria or Turkey, Pavel Fomin, Director of Yekaterinburg-based BeHome, told UrBC. ‘The customers who used to buy homes abroad do not have the money at the moment, so the demand sagged down to zero. The other type of customer, the ones who used to invest in expensive property in Spain, have hardly been affected by the crisis, so things are looking much better in this market segment. On the whole, the foreign estate market is faced with declining demand,’ Fomin said. Fomin reports the