August 7, 2013. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation made Bank24.ru face administrative liability and pay a fine; this information is available from the regulatory body's website. Bank24.ru was fined for violating Article 15.27 of the Russian Federation Administrative Offense Code by failing to meet the legal requirements on countering money laundering activity and terrorist financing. The bank had to face administrative liability on the basis of the first part of the Article. The Central Bank's decree has already come into full effect.

August 7, 2013. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) came up with a report on the projects it implemented that were aimed at decreasing the company's energy spending at MMK Group's enterprises and divisions in the first half of 2013. The events were targeted at saving energy, electric power, fuel, drinking and manufacturing water, heating energy, and air separation products, the company reports. The measures taken in the first half of 2013 (including replacing the energy-intensive equipment and improving the performance of the appliances used) 3.7 million kilowatt-hours of

August 6, 2013. 10,000 sq m of housing was put up in Sverdlovsk Region in six months of 2013; the target figure was 13,200 sq m. In addition, 58km of pipelines were laid, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s press service reports. So 145 families were able to improve their living conditions under the Social Development of Rural Areas through 2013 Program; before the end of this year, 53 more families are expected to move to new dwellings. 185m RUR are expected to be allocated to the rural areas housing construction in 2013. 123m RUR will be provided by Sverdlovsk Region’s budget and the rest will

August 6, 2013. MegaFon Ural is now giving its subscribers a chance to watch thousands of films in Russia’s most popular online movie theater ivi.ru without any extra charge for the Internet traffic, the company’s press service reports. Ivi.ru is visited by over 15m unique users every month. This year, ivi reports, the website gets 125 to 150 million hits monthly. ‘People increasingly prefer to watch their favorite films and series at a suitable time and do not like depending on a TV program. MegaFon Ural subscribers who use the mobile carrier’s mobile Internet connection can now enjoy not

August 6, 2013. 240,000 sq m of private housing was put up in Sverdlovsk Region in January-June 2013, which is 23% more than a year earlier, the region’s government’s press service reports. At the same time, the amount of housing commissioned in the first half of the year was 8% more than in the first half of 2012 and came to 389,000 sq m. The volume of housing construction affected the demand at the building materials market as well. For one, the floor tiles production rose by 2% in January-June 2013 and the brick production increased by 5%. Sverdlovsk Region Government is planning to have

August 6, 2013. Prices for all the basic types of building materials rose in all parts of Russia over the last month: this was the conclusion made by experts from the National Costing Pricing & Value Engineering Association (NASI). According to these experts’ research findings, the single-piece wall materials prices rose by 2.4%, cement became 1.9% more expensive, and ready-made slurry became 0.7% more expensive. The price of non-ore building materials increased by 0.4% and the price of ferrous metal stock used in the building industry rose by 0.2%.

August 6, 2013. NLMK Electrotechnical Steel Director Valery Shevelev succeeded Sergey Makurov in his position as the Director-General of VIZ-Stal, the enterprise’s press service reports. Shevelev is going to combine his new duties with the responsibilities of NLMK Electrotechnical Steel Director. What is more, he will also be in charge of running NLMK subsidiary in Yekaterinburg – NLMK Ural. Now Shevelev actually was the head of VIZ-Stal before, in 2006-2007.

August 5, 2013. Ural Airlines added one Airbus 319 to its fleet of vehicles. The air carrier's press service reports that the liner is fit for 134 passengers (126 economy class seats and 8 business class ones). 'The new A319 will set off on its first flight under Ural Airlines name today: the plane will take its passengers from Yekaterinburg to the seaside resort of Anapa,' the press service says. With the addition of this new Airbus 319, the company's fleet of vehicles now comprises 31 aircraft (19 A320 ones, 10 A321 ones, and 2 A319 ones). Ural Airlines launched its

August 5, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region was given the 24th position in the rating of Russian Federation constituencies that are trying to reduce the government debt: the region's debt has declined by 11.4% since the beginning of the year and came to 18.38bn RUR as of July 1, 2013. Debts came to 13.6% of the regional budget's revenues in 2012. The federal constituencies' accumulated debt came to 1.311 trillion RUR, which was down 2.9% on last year, RIA Rating, a rating agency, reports. 48 federal constituencies managed to reduce their debt in the first half of the year. All in all,

August 5, 2013. UTair Aviation supported Yekaterinburg's application to host the World Expo 2020 event. The air carrier's press service reports that a branded logo that reads, Ekaterinburg World Expo 2020, was painted on the body of the company's VQ-BAE Boeing 737-500. The air liner operates flight from Yekaterinburg and a number of other cities to Vnukovo Airport of Moscow. 'Yekaterinburg winning the right to host this World Universal Exhibition EXPO 2020 will give a powerful boost to the area's development, will enhance business activity here, and will increase both

An inspection of MTS-Bank by Sverdlovsk Region authorities revealed that the bank's loan agreements violate consumers' rights. According to the spokesperson for the authorities, it follows from the terms of the loan contracts MTS-Bank is signing with its customers that a loan is only offered to a borrowing party provided that the latter opens an account with the bank. Now such a proviso in a loan agreement actually infringes upon the consumers' rights, as there is no legal requirement to open an account with a bank when a private individual is taking out a loan. Besides, it

August 2, 2013. The retail trade turnover amounted to 448.2m RUR in Sverdlovsk Region in January-June 2013, which was 5.5% more than a year earlier, the region's Economic Development Ministry reports. According to the Ministry's statistical data, the food/non-food items ratio was 46.4%/53.6% in the retail sector; the volume of food items in the first half of 2013 was 3.6% larger than a year earlier, and the volume of non-food item sales was 7.1% greater. The catering industry turnover came to 22.6bn RUR in January-June 2013, which is 5.5% more than a year earlier in comparable

August 2, 2013. Sverdlovsk Region is now the constituency with the third biggest amount of new foreign cars purchased by locals: 42,700 cars were sold in the first half of 2013, which is 2,500 less than a year earlier. All in all, 1.04m foreign cars were sold in Russia over this period, which is 4.5% less than a year earlier, Avtostat, an analytics agency, reports. Moscow residents still buy the largest number of cars: 31.5% of all the foreign cats that were sold in Russia in January-June 2013 were sold in Moscow. Saint-Petersburg, which represents 8.7% of all sales, is the city with the

August 2, 2013. The possibility of the electrolysis production stoppage at Bogoslovsky smelter was considered at the Krasnoturyinsk Duma's extraordinary meeting. The Duma deputies decided to write a letter to the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region, asking him to try and prevent the stoppage of the 6th section, as this section is responsible for the production of goods for the automobile industry. An official representative of UC RUSAL in Ural Federal District Roman Lukichev told UrBC that the company is now looking at different formats an enterprise could operate in under the current

August 2, 2013. Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev signed a provision on allocating Sverdlovsk Region a sum of money to build a football stadium in preparation for the World Cup 2018. The Russian Federation Government's official website states that Sverdlovsk Region is one of the seven federal constituencies to split 2.9bn RUR among themselves. These constituencies are: Mordovia, Volgograd Region, Kaliningrad Region, Nizhniy Novgorod Region, Samara Region, and Rostov Region. 'The implementation of this provision means we can finance the construction or reconstruction of 7

August 2, 2013. The Director of the Education & Science Ministry's Program and Tender Management Department Sergey Kravtsov was appointed Head of Rosobrnadzor, the Federal Education & Science Surveillance Service,' Kommersant reports. According to the newspaper, the candidacy was proposed by Dmitri Livanov. His choice must now be approved of by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, who dismissed Ivan Muravyov yesterday. Kravtsov himself chose not to offer any comments for the press. Now the 30-year-old Ivan Muravyov became Head of Rosobrnadzor last fall. His dismissal was preceded

August 1, 2013. The Russian Institute of Directors confrmed the corproate governance rating of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) at 8 along the national scale (Advanced Corporate Governance Practices). The changes in MMK corporate governance policy that took place during the monitoring period (July 24, 2013 to July 30, 2013) did not affect the rating estimate. In 2012, MMK implemented a number of projects aimed at improving the company's risk management system and approved of the new Charter and some other internal documentation. MMK's corproate governance rating on the

August 1, 2013. METCOMBANK customers can now buy some foreign currency without setting foot outside their homes using METCOM-Online, the new e-banking service, the bank reports. 'Foreign currency transactions can be performed via both the regular e-banking service and the m-banking one. The service is very handy for those who are trying to save up some money before their vacations or simply prefer to keep their savings in euros or dollars,' says METCOMBANK Chairman of the Supervisory Board Dmitri Torbenko. One can make the purchase using the Money Transfer (Transfer into My Account)

August 1, 2013. Ural Airlines operated its first Chelyabinsk-Namangan flight, the company's press service reports. Passengers on this new flight set off for Uzbekistan at 10 AM on July 31, 2013 (local time) on a comfortable Airbus 320 plane. Now the flights from Chelyabinsk to Namangan will be offered once a week, every Wednesday. The cheapest one-way tickets are available for ?200 (excluding the fees). Ural Airlines have been operating flights to Namangan from Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Krasnoyarsk. The new Chelyabinsk-Namangan flight will be available through late

August 1, 2013. Ural Airlines is launching a new flight from Krasnoyarsk to Samarkand that will connect Eastern Siberia to one of Uzbekistan's largest cities, the airline's press service reports. 'The first Krasnoyarsk-Samarkand-Krasnoyarsk flight will be operated on August 8, 2013 and will be offered every Thursday. The price of a one-way ticket starts from ?210 (plus the fees),' the company's press release says. Samarkand is now Uzbekistan's third city to have Ural Airlines flights offered from Krasnoyarsk. These flights will be operated on the Airbus family