UrBC, Moscow, September 9, 2019. The Bank of Russia’s Board of Directors cut the key rate by 25 bp to 7% p.a., the CBR’s website states. ‘Inflation slowdown is continuing. At the same time, inflation expectations remain elevated. The Russian economy’s growth rate is still coming in lower than the Bank of Russia’s expectations. Risks of a global economic slowdown have increased. Risks of inflation accelerating or slowing down by the year-end are balanced. In these circumstances and taking actual inflation dynamics into account, the Bank of Russia has lowered its end-of-year annual inflation

UrBC, Moscow, September 9, 2019. New and used automobile sales dropped by 1.3% on the Russian market in August 2019, that is, down to 145,545 units, the Association of European Business reports. August was not a month to bring any significant changes on the market; the sales remained below the decent benchmark achieved one year earlier, says Vice Chair at the Association’s Automobile Manufacturers Committee (AMC) Lars Himmer.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 9, 2019. According to Global Destinations Cities Index, Yekaterinburg is among the world’s top two hundred cities frequented by tourists most often, the city council’s Information Policy Department reports. Thailand’s Bangkok has stayed at the top of the rating for the fourth year in a row now; as for the Russian cities, Yekaterinburg only competes with Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Vladivostok. Mayor of Yekaterinburg Alexander Vysokinsky believes the city fully deserved its status of a popular tourist destination. ‘Yekaterinburg has all the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 6, 2019. 89,200 used cars got sold on Sverdlovsk Region market in the first seven months of 2019, which was 3.1% less than one year earlier, Avtostat’s research findings indicate. Moscow Region, where 191,500 used cars were sold, Moscow (147,900), Krasnodar Territory (144,600), and Saint Petersburg (100,100) are at the top of the national sales rating. In Russia on the whole, 2.977m used cars were sold in January-July 2019, which was 0.4% less than in January-July 2018.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 6, 2019. Yekaterinburg and Nizhniy Tagil will get allocated considerable funds within the framework of the Safe, Good Quality Roads Project in 2020 and 2021. The decision was taken at Sverdlovsk Region Government’s latest meeting, Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policy Department reports. It was decided that Yekaterinburg would receive RUB 1bn in 2020 and RUB 1bn in 2021; Nizhniy Tagil will receive RUB 576m in 2020 and the same amount in 2021. The money will get directed to local road repairs. Sverdlovsk Region Government believes this will help maintain the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 6, 2019. There were 24,318 people officially out of employment in Sverdlovsk Region as of September 4, 2019, Sverdlovsk Region’s Labor & Employment Department reports. The unemployment rate thus rose by 11.9% since the start of the year: as of January 1, 2019, there were 21,726 jobless residents in the constituency.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 6, 2019. Five hundred people are now new students on ChelPipe Group’s Future of White-Coated Metallurgy Corporate Training Program and Tatarstan’s College of The Future Program. According to the Group’s press service, the enrollment campaign ran at Pervouralsk Metallurgical School (Sverdlovsk Region), A.V. Yakovlev Chelyabinsk State Industrial/Humanities School (Chelyabinsk Region), and Almetyevsk Vocational School (Tatarstan). More than nine hundred young people submitted their proposals. In the end, 250 people got enrolled as first-year students in

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 6, 2019. SKB-Bank is one of Russia’s first banks to be testing the QR code payment option, the bank’s press service reports. The option is part of the bank’s Faster Payments System (FPS) and got launched in an experimental mode on August 30, 2019. ‘SKB-Bank is now laying the foundation for Russia’s new financial ecosystem; in fact, the bank keeps introducing breakthrough technologies on an ongoing basis. The QR payment option has already been designed by SKB-Bank, tested and certified by the national payment card system, and piloted to the bank’s customers,’ the

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 5, 2019. Sverdlovsk Region and Chelyabinsk Region are now on the list of Russian constituencies with the most polluted soil, Russia’s Nature Ministry’s report On the Russian Federation’s Environment & Environmental Protection in 2018 states. Saint Petersburg, North Ossetia, Primorsky Territory, Novgorod Region, and Murmansk Region are also on the list. According to the report, Abakan, Angarsk, Barnaul, Irkutsk, Kransoyarsk, Kyzyl, Novokuznetsk, and Norilsk are also listed as the Russian cities with the most polluted air.

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 5, 2019. Thanks to EVRAZ Holding’s support, fourteen schoolchildren from Nizhniy Tagil, Kachkanar, and Mezhdurechensk took part in the Agency for Strategic Initiatives’ Cadre of The Future Program in the summer camp Artek, EVRAZ Holding Ural’s Corporate Communications Center reports. The children who got selected for the program are among the most active participants of the Children’s Foresight Program who designed a number of socially important projects for their home towns. ‘EVRAZ Holding and the Social Investment Foundation have been coordinating Children’s

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 5, 2019. New Coalface 50-22 (estimated coal reserves: 1,638,000,000 kg) got launched at EVRAZ Holding’s Uskovskaya Mine, Raspadskaya Coal Company’s PR Department reports. ‘This section of the mine is 1,700 meters long and is located in the western part of the allotment’s southern wing. This is the penultimate section of Bank 50 that needs to get worked through before the miners can move on to Bank 48. Some 9km worth of the mine opening had to get prepared prior to the start of the mining process,’ the company says. Equipment by the world’s leading manufacturers

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, September 5, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Energy Department keeps working on a micro cost center/cost accounting program as part of the plant’s management’s strategic initiative on Personalized Resource Management. According to MMK’s press service, the goal is to make the department’s cost accounting more efficient, to ensure competition in the field of resource efficiency, and, consequently, to reduce production costs within the department. ‘We started with the analysis of the tech process to define the key points where material and labor resource

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 5, 2019. OOO FORES intends to do a special-purpose evaluation of working conditions at the plant in 2020, the company’s press service refers to Job Safety & Industrial Safety Director Nikolai Shedlovsky as saying. ‘An assessment must take place every five years at least, in order to determine whether there are any harmful or hazardous production factors at work. This is a long-term program; as FORES operates several plants, the special-purpose evaluation procedure got launched in 2015 and continued in 2016. This means the five-year mark for the next

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 4, 2019. SKB-Bank’s e-banking package proved one of Russia’s top ten online banking services for private customers according to Internet Banking Rank 2019 by MarksWebb, the bank’s press service reports. ‘This is the first time SKB-Bank has been featured in this rating; the bank came 7th in the rating in Digital Office and 9th in Daily Banking. This means SKB-Bank Online lets you deal with everyday things like card-to-card transfers or paying your housing bills as well as access the services that used to require a visit to the bank: applying for a bank statement

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 4, 2019. As of August 26, 2019, the average asking price of an existing home in Yekaterinburg came to RUB 72,618 per m2, Ural Real Estate Chamber’s report states. ‘The price only rose by 0.1% in the last four weeks. For the last two months, in fact, the average price fluctuations have remained under 0.1% a week,’ the report says. The average asking price of apartments in Stalin-era buildings dropped by 0.6% (down to RUB 60,815 per m2), that of apartments in Khrushchev-era buildings dropped by 0.3% (down to RUB 64,242); homes with better layouts in more recent

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 4, 2019. ChelPipe Group’s representatives won prizes at the 45th International WorldSkills Championship in Kazan. This is the first time the international round of the championship has taken place in Russia, bringing together 1,500 people from 63 different countries. According to the Group’s press service, student on their Future of White-Coated Metallurgy Corporate Training Program in Pervouralsk Alexander Galkin and the program alumnus Konstantin Komlev won silver in Future Skills/Robotized Welding. ‘The four-module challenge included making a metal structure

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 4, 2019. OOO FORES allocated nearly RUB 5m to support local schools and kindergartens in May-July 2019, the company’s press service reports. ‘School 7 in Sukhoi Log had its classrooms remodeled and the surrounding premises fixed and improved. Malyshok Kindergarten in Sukhoi Log now has a study room, Solnyshko Kindergarten got a new recreation room, Tsvetik-Semitsvetik Children’s Development Center got broadcasting studio equipment, and Extracurricular Education Center had all the classrooms repaired and its central heating upgraded,’ the company says. A

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, September 4, 2019. thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions completed its audit of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) coke and by-product process facilities as part of the plant’s environmental program to reduce the facilities’ dust and gas emissions, MMK’s press service reports. ‘A set of measures to improve the coke and by-product process department’s environmental performance is part of MMK’s investment program. The entire department is to undergo major upgrades within the next few years,’ the press service says. The external audit was meant to determine the facilities’

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 3, 2019. OOO FORES’s Sukhoi Log branch opened a children’s playground in Fabrika, investing over RUB 2m in the project, the company’s press service reports. The new playground has all the sports and playing appliances the children need, including a merry-go-round, pull-up bars, a dodecahedron climbing wall, benches, a sandbox and two spring riders (‘helicopter’ and ‘quad bike’). Director at OOO FORES’s Sukhoi Log branch Alexander Konstantinov says the new playground is one of the company’s many social welfare projects in Sukhoi Log; the company also paid for the

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, September 3, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) keeps working on Prityazhenie, a special project for Magnitogorsk proposed and coordinated by the company’s Chair of the BOD Viktor Rashnikov, MMK’s Information & PR Department reports. ‘The project, which is currently unique to Russia, aims to create an absolutely new type of quality urban environment on the 400-hectare land allotment MMK owns. There will be advanced sports facilities, medical establishments, museums, and education and culture infrastructure there, so that Magnitogorsk residents and visitors