August 23, 2013. The volume of overdue mortgage payments rose by 100m RUR in the first half of 2013 (0.2%) and reached 41.8bn RUR, the National Collection Service reports. At the same time, the share of these payments in the total loan book is now smaller and comes to 1.8%, while a year earlier, the figure was 2.5%. The total loan book rose by 13% in the first half of 2013, while the mortgage market, which increased by 18%, has outstripped the retail lending sector, which rose by 17.5%, for the first time this year. The total worth of loans offered to private individuals was more than 9

August 22, 2013. Ural Locomotives (Sinara Group and Siemens AG’s joint venture based in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk Region) got the IRIS certification and now meets the international railway requirements. The certificate was issued by a group of auditors from Quality Austria and upon its recommendation, Sinara Group’s PR Department reports. The IRIS (International Railware Industry Standard) certification system was designed at the European railway union’s (UNIFE) initiative to improve the quality of products and services among the railway industry suppliers. Ural Locomotives started

August 22, 2013. A solemn awarding ceremony for the winners of media contests held to support the professional skills (held under the slogan of Glory to the Man of Labor!) took place in Yekaterinburg. The awards were given out by Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation in Ural Federal District Igor Kholmanskikh, ChTPZ Group’s press service reports. ‘Glory to the Man of Labor proved a successful project and is now growing nation-wide. This was in many ways due to the strong media support and the contests held within the framework of this project. The interest these contests

August 22, 2013. As of July 1, 2013, Sverdlovsk Region fiscal authorities published about 131,000 notifications on excluding the non-operating legal entities from the United State Register of Legal Entities in Vestnik Gosudarstvennoy Registratsii, Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service reports. In the first half of 2013, 23,000 notifications were published and 101,000 legal entities were excluded from the register altogether (14,000 in the first half of the year). Now the registering authority has the power to take certain types of organizations off the list

August 22, 2013. The median interest rate on a ruble loan proposed by Russian banks (excluding Sberbank) to its private customers came to 24.3% in July 2013, the Central Bank reports. This is the lowest figure in this year so far; a month earlier, the rate came to 24.9%, in January, it was 26.2%. The median interest rate on loans that are over one year long also went down to this year’s lowest (from 20.5% down to 20.1%), Banki.ru reports. The median interest rate on loans offered to corporates outside the financial sector for a period of less than a year is now 9.9% against 10.1% a month

August 22, 2013. A criminal lawsuit involving the former DG of Yushalinsky Woodworking Plant Ekaterina Zoteyeva was directed to court. The spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities is now accused of failing to act as a fiscal agent for reasons of personal gain (Article 199.1(Part 1) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code) and tax evasion (Article 199.2 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code). The investigative team believe Zoteyeva, when she was the plant’s director in May 2010 to June 2011, avoided paying over 2.4m RUR worth of personal income tax due to be paid by

August 21, 2013. The supply is rather limited at the moment at the warehouse market in Yekaterinburg: the existing space is still not enough to meet the demand. Besides, nearly 120,000 sq m worth of storage space is frozen for the time being. Rent has gone up by over 50% in this market segment in the last three years, experts from Ural Chamber of Real Estate Analytical Department report. Because of the developers’ low activity when the recession struck, the market got a very limited supply of new storage space, so at the moment the shortage is keenly felt, especially in the good quality space

August 21, 2013. Laos sent a note of support to the BIE selection board to support Yekaterinburg’s application for the right to host the international exhibition EXPO 2020, Laos Planning & Investment Minister said at a meeting with Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev, the region’s government’s press service reports. A copy of this diplomatic statement was handed over to the Governor; later on, the paper will be forwarded to Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was also announced during the meeting that Laos Government is planning to join the 9th International Arms &

August 21, 2013. A professional skills contest aimed at selecting the best foreman was held at Seversky Pipe Plant (STZ, a member of Pipe Metallurgical Company), the company’s press service reports. 15 foremen and senior foremen from STZ departments (all of them in the under-35 age group) took part in the competition. The main idea behind the contest was to find young leaders with great managerial skills and to encourage the employees to boost their self-development and improve their managerial performance. A written test is one of the important stages of the contest. This year, there were

August 21, 2013. 505,400 sq m of housing was commissioned in Sverdlovsk Region in January-July 2013. According to the official data from Sverdlovskstat, this is 11.9% more than in the seven months of 2012, 23.4% less than in June 2013, and 28.2% more than in July 2012.

August 21, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor carried out a scheduled inspection of EVRAZ KGOK and detected 20 violations of the sanitary and epidemiological wellbeing requirements, the spokesperson for the division reports. For one, EVRAZ KGOK does not provide the necessary working conditions for its employees, and the dust and pollutants content in the air inside the production zones does not meet the existing hygienic requirements. The company also lacks a full list of the raw materials it uses with the corresponding documentation to accompany it; nor does it have the

August 20, 2013. Platinum production doubled in Sverdlovsk Region in the first half of 2013 and amounted to 54.28kg. A year earlier, 27.57kg of this precious metal were produced, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s press service refers to Chairman of the Union of the Urals’s Gold Industry Entrepreneurs Alexander Yastrebkov as saying. The gold output figures rose by 6% as well, from 2,934.4 kilos to 3,119 kilos.

August 20, 2013. Yekaterinburg dwellers could recently enjoy the beauty of 3D installations presented by the participants of the Color Festival on August 16, on the eve of Town Day. The spokesperson for Yekaterinburg Council reports that the show, based on the technology aimed for creating a 3D video image on a multi-angle surface, took place in Historic Square. This central spot was totally transformed once it got dark. ‘Visitors to Plotinka saw some experimenting with the volume and geometry, with the changing urban landscape transformed in the twilight,’ the spokesperson says.

August 20, 2013. Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant’s produce – ceramic flux (a powder used in the welding process) was certified by the National Welding Control Agency. By now, the Agency issued four certificates to confirm four varieties of ceramic flux - UF-N, UF-01, UF-02, and UF-03. Now ChTPZ Group has been producing ceramic flux since 2004; the second extension of the Ceramic flux project was launched in 2012, so the production capacity doubled and came to 14,000 tons a year; the launch of this new line made ChTPZ one of Russia and Europe’s largest ceramics producers. At the same time,

August 20, 2013. UC RUSAL signed an agreement with IES Holding to buy Bogoslovskaya Power Station in Krasnoturyinsk, Sverdlovsk Region. The company’s press service reports that buying the station will ensure the stable alumina production at Bogoslovsky smelter. The acquisition will also mean that the alumina prime cost will go down for this enterprise and that the produce will therefore become more competitive. All the jobs will be retained at the alumina facility in Krasnoturyinsk. Bogoslovskaya Power Station, with projected generating capacity of 135.5 megawatts will become a part of UC

August 20, 2013. Ural Airlines is planning to add six more Airbus planes to its fleet of vehicles in 2014, RIA Novosti refers to the company’s Director-General Sergey Skuratov as saying. ‘So far, we have signed contracts for 4 Airbus 319 ones,’ Skuratov said. He added that two more airplanes would also be from the Airbus family and will be either Airbus 321 ones or Airbus A320 ones. Skuratov said that in 2014, the airline will probably settle down with one particular type of a wide-bodied aircraft that it will be operating in the future. For now, Ural Airlines are putting up a large hangar

August 19, 2013. As of August 1, 2013, the total arrears of wages among businesses outside the SME sector was 2.526bn RUR, which was 11m RUR, or 0.4% more than on July 1, 2013, Rosstat (the Federal State Statistics Service) reports. The arrears of wages grew by 1.6 times or 63% since the beginning of the year (the figure stood at 1.56bn RUR on January 1, 2013). As for Ural Federal District, the arrears of wages here amounted to 11.5m RUR as of August 1, 2013. This is 7.4% more than a month earlier. Sverdlovsk Region currently owns 1.2m RUR to the locally employed workers, which is up 7.7% on

August 19, 2013. Ural Airlines and Koltsovo Airport held a solemn reception for the aviation industry workers at the Hyatt Hotel in Yekaterinburg to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Ural aviation industry, the airline’s press service reports. The reception was attended by Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev, who awarded honorary certificates of Sverdlovsk Region Government to heads of aviation enterprises: Ural Airlines Director-General Sergey Skuratov, Ural Airlines Production Director Vladimir Chikilev, Koltsovo Airport Director-General Evgeny Chudnovsky and Koltsovo Airport

August 19, 2013. The volume of investments in the capital assets of Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises came to 116.7bn RUR in January-June 2013, which is 3.1% more than a year earlier, the region’s Economics Ministry’s press service reports. According to the statistical data provided by the ministry, 77.2% of all the investments (90bn RUR) was directed to Sverdlovsk Region-based enterprises that are not SMEs. About a half of this money (48.5% or 43.6bn RUR) is aimed for industrial development and 17.8% or 16bn RUR is aimed for transport and telecommunications development. The social sector

August 19, 2013. The solemn opening ceremony took place at a new school in Academic District of Yekaterinburg on August 16. This is the second secondary school to be set up in this district. School 19 is fit for 875 schoolchildren per shift, and 150 first-graders will be welcomed there on September 1, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s Information Policies Department reports. The school happens to be one of the most spacious in Sverdlovsk Region: its area comes to more than 16,000 square meters. The school has got large recreation areas, a conference all with 520 seats, two gyms, a swimming