METCOMBANK’s branch at Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg started operating today, on August 20. The new branch located in Terminal B of the international airport (at 1E Bakhchivandzhi St.), the bank’s press service reports. ‘Our bank is trying to get closer to its customers: the new office will be very convenient for those who travel a lot and don’t always have the time to stop by the bank. For one, currency can now be exchanged right at the airport prior to leaving for abroad. Our clerks will always come to your help if you have some urgent financial business to handle yet you only have

Uralvagonzavod Scientific Production Corporation will present its new tractor RT-M-160U with a firefighting device at the 7th International Exhibition Defense & Protection 2012. The new tractor is a modified version of the wheel agricultural tractor the plant has been making since 2004. In July 2011, Kurgan Region Government’s Forestry Department appealed to Uralvagonzavod, asking to complement tractor RT-M-160U with a special firefighting device. It took the plant’s engineers six months to fulfill this task, and by the end of 2011, this Nizhniy Tagil-based enterprise shipped four

OAO Sinara Pipe Plant (a part of Pipe Metallurgical Company, TMK) came up with the pilot samples of high quality iron ore raw stuff obtained from cinder and sludge; the characteristics of this stuff are comparable with the best kinds of iron ore mix and pellets produced in Russia. Ferrous metallurgical enterprises tend to accumulate most of their iron-containing waste on special sites rather than recycle it in the production process, which affects the environment badly. Thus the fact that Sinara Pipe Plant and Yekaterinburg-based Specialized Design Office for Mechanization & Automation

Analysts from Sravni.ru came up with a list of banks that Russian customers entrusted most money with last month. The rating was based on the data provided by Russia’s Central Bank. The rating features both capital-based and provincial banks. For example, customers from all parts of Russia deposited 2.51bn RUR at SKB-Bank in July. This ensured the bank the 9th position in the total rating, which was better than any other Ural Federal District-based bank did. These impressive growth rates were made possible due to the advantageous deposit terms that SKB-Bank offered its customers. The interest

The construction site of Power Generating Unit 4 with its BH-800 reactor will be handed over to Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station before the end of this year, OAO Concern Rosenergoatom reports. Most of the building jobs at the site are about to be completed by now, so it was decided to close down the subsidiary Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station under Construction’s Directorate (which is currently responsible for managing the emerging power generating unit). By November 2012, the subsidiary will become part of Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Station as its Capital Construction Administration. The

Rostechnologii State Corporation sold 15.14% of the shares it has in Ural Mechano-Optical Plant Production Association (PO UOMZ) to the Federal Public Property Management Agency on August 16. This means its share in PO UOMZ went down from 92.6% to 77.46%, the plant’s reports state. The Federal Public Property Management Agency, acting on behalf of the Russian Federation, thus acquired the right to control 1,016,200 ordinary shares; this means its stake in the plant increased from 7.4% to 22.54%.

OAO Rostelecom is about to complete the re-branding of its cell communication assets. Utel, the brand that was used in advertising campaigns for one year, will soon disappear. Starting September 17, 2012, twenty-two Russian constituencies will be offered mobile telecommunication services under the federal brand Rostelecom, the company’s press service reports. Now OAO Uralsvyazinform was reorganized through a merger with OAO Rostelecom a while ago. Prior to this merger, Uralsvyazinform used to operate under the brand name Utel.

Each and every of Nizhniy Tagil Dzerzhinsky District’s schools was given a multimedia set by Uralvagonzavod (UVZ). Proofs of ownership were handed to the school principals by the Executive Director of UVZ Corporation’s main enterprise Vladimir Roschupkin. This was part of a social partnership program involving the city’s primary employer and the educational establishments of Dzerzhinsky District. All the modern equipment was given to schools as a gift; it is meant to be used in the Physics classrooms. There are several goals behind this: to help improve the educational process and enhance the

4bn RUR a year will be allocated for the financing of the regional specific program called The Capital and targeted at Yekaterinburg’s development. 20bn RUR will be directed to the program from the regional budget funds over five years, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev said on August 17 when he talked to the reporters on the eve of the City Festival. ‘We have agreed on the scale of the project and decided on 4bn RUR a year. The project’s top priority is construction and reconstruction of the transport infrastructure. There are so many drivers in the region’s capital at the

UVZ-Logistic, the railway operator that was set up in 2010 and immediately made it to the list of Top10 cistern owners in 2011, was given the 31st position in the 5th annual rating called INFOLine Rail Russia TOP along the following criteria: railway freight forwarding revenues (the 18th position), the number of carriages owned by the company (including the ones on financial lease, the 30th position), the freight forwarding turnover in the company’s own and rented carriages (the 36th position), and the number of cargo containers managed by the company (the 37th position). The 5th annual

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (a member of ChTPZ Group) is now taking part in the South Passage Project. Within this project, the plant’s Vysota 239 Department is to supply over 40,000 tons of tubing products to OAO Gazprom in August and September 2012. These ChTPZ-manufactured pipes with the diameter of 1,420mm, wall width 21.6mm, working pressure of up to 9.8 MPa, and an external and internal three-layer corrosion-resistant coating are made of K60 steel and comply with all the certificates and meet all the requirements necessary to join the project. What is more, these LDPs are different

A working team was set up at the end of the meeting dedicated to the Northern Latitudinal Railway Project. The team comprises the representatives of the executive branch from three regions: Tyumen Region, Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region, and Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region as well as a number of officials from the Transport and the Economic Development Ministries, Russian Railways, OAO Gazprom, Novatec, Vnesheconombank, and heads of oil companies. The team will be headed by Governor of Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous Region Dmitri Kobylkin. The meeting, chaired by Russia’s Transport Minister

The employees of AMUR Car Factory who were made redundant after the company went into liquidation intend to go on hunger-strike on August 20, head of the initiative committee Valery Spiridonov says. ‘On August 20, 2012, an initiative group of more than 20 people intends to go on hunger-strike. Our aim is to get our wages. Some of the hunger-strikers haven’t been paid since October 2011,’ Spiridonov told UrBC. He says the plant owes the laid-off workers about 1.5m RUR. ‘We sent requests for help t o Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev and Public Prosecutor of Sverdlovsk Region

Greenwich Shopping & Entertainment Center will award money prizes to the winners for three gold and two bronze Olympic medals, the mall’s press service reports. Next week, the Urals-based sports players are coming home after the summer Olympics in London. The residents of Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region can see their heroes, ask them some questions, and get autographs. Greenwich will give the champions 100,000 RUR for bronze medals, 150,000 RUR for the silver ones, and 300,000 RUR for the gold ones. Athlete Maria Savinova, synchronous swimmer Angelica Timanina, and boxer Yegor

Sinara Pipe Plant (a member of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) coordinated the traditional tourist conference, dubbed Friendship and dedicated to the memory of Boris Martyushev, the person who inspired and organized such conferences in the 1950s and the 1960s, the company’s press office states. The event took place on the bank of the River Kamenka, near Novy Zavod. Over 350 people from 15 teams representing Sinara Pipe Plant and its associates as well as the other TMK plants: Orsk Machine-Building Plant and Seversky Pipe Plant and Ural Locomotives, a member of Sinara Group. The team from

The net loss of OAO AvtoVAZ (calculated in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards) came to 469m RUR in the first half of 2012 against the 2.065bn-ruble profit a year earlier, RBC daily reports. According to the report, the loss at the end of the six-month period was caused by lower profitability of car sales. AvtoVAZ’s revenues rose by 3.9% in the first half of 2012 and came to 84.673bn RUR against 81.469bn RUR in the first six months of 2011. The company’s gross profit dropped by 24% and reached 8.202bn RUR in January-June 2012 compared with the 10.801bn RUR made a year earlier.

The 17th Arbitration & Appeals Court refused to let Oil Plant appeal of a decision made by Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court: the latter had ruled that there were no grounds for declaring the regional tax inspectorate’s refusal to offer the plaintiff a 1.7m RUR tax rebate invalid, the website for Russia’s Supreme Arbitration Court states. Oil Plant appealed to Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, asking to declare the regional tax inspectorate’s refusal to offer the plaintiff a 1.7m RUR tax rebate (Provision 56 dated October 7, 2011) invalid; the tax rebate was related to the plant’s

Uralvagonzavod (the main enterprise of UVZ Corporation) joined the regional tour of the All-Russian contest on Russia’s Enhanced Social Efficiency Enterprise. The enterprise competes in the following categories: The cadre potential development in the production sector organizations; The promotion of a healthy lifestyle in the production sector organizations; The social partnership development in the production sector organizations; Taking part in solving the social problems of local areas and development of corporate charity. Uralvagonzavod can expect to win in all the four categories because

The employees of Uralvagonzavod Scientific Production Corporation attended some emergency drills, which was part of the municipal evacuation committee’s routine programs. In the end, the company’s Civil Defense & Emergencies Department’s employees proved the only experts in Nizhniy Tagil capable of setting up Clearing Point 56 within the required time limit. This evacuation point is meant for getting together and counting all the people who have to evacuate and for sending them to a safe area or to the countryside. The employees of Uralvagonzavod organized everything at Clearing Point 56

The French business magazine Les Echo is getting ready to publish a report on the corporate museums of industrial giants, including Volkswagen, Coсa-Cola, and Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). ‘Les Echo reporter not only visited MMK museum but also took a look at the company’s production site. He checked out the company’s new production facilities such as Mill 5000 and the cold-roll facility. MMK’s largest investment projects left him quite fascinated: he said he wondered why no metal goods for making LDPs were produced in the Soviet Union, even though oil and natural gas were