Metallurgy, machine building, fuel and energy sector, construction and agriculture are the main industries which influence the development of the region.
Metallurgy sector is strength and glory of the Ural industry. Nowadays the region has all conditions for successful development of metallurgical enterprises - great scientific and industrial potential to produce the whole range of output, qualified personnel, and demand for metallurgical products in home and outer markets. These factors allow metallurgical companies to increase production volume.
50% of industrial and production assets, 30% of all industrial staff are concentrated in the metallurgy sector. Metallurgical enterprises provide about 30% of all tax payments in the Chelyabinsk Region.
Such metallurgical enterprises located in the region as Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, Zlatoust Metallurgical Plant, Asha Metallurgical Plant, Karabashcopper, Urals Stampings Plant and others are the major enterprises in their cities; their successful business influences the volume of revenues in the local and regional budgets, economic and social welfare - employment rate and income rate of the population.
In order to become more competitive in the world market and sort out important industrial problems metallurgical enterprises of the South Urals search for integration, consolidation of assets in the regional industry. Integration of enterprises leads to increase of managerial efficiency, optimization of industrial processes, accumulation of investment resources for implementation of large projects which provide a quicker and maximal benefit.
Machine building is still attractive for investment - high intellectual potential of engineers, skilled personnel, production areas provide the opportunity to implement various projects, besides, multipurpose equipment can be used not only for machine building production.
Machine building enterprises produce over 10% of the regional industrial output. The leading companies of this sector are Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant “Uraltrac”, Chelyabinsk Construction and Road Machinery, Kopeysk Machine Building Plant, Chelyabinsk Mechanical Plant, “Ural” Automobile Plant, Chelyabinsk Forge-and-Press Plant, Ust-Katav Car Building Plant, “Miasselektroapparat”, “Teplopribor” Plant, “Metran” Industrial Group, Chelyabinsk Electrode Plant, etc.
The most important objectives of the machine building industry are to preserve and develop technical and scientific potential, increase the output of value added goods, use the most valuable elements of industrial, scientific, and technological potential of defense machine building for modernization of civil machine building.
In the North-West of the region there are unique largest atomic centres (Snezhinsk and Ozersk cities), in the West there are centres of rocket engineering and space machinery.
Fuel and energy sector.
All electrical power in the Chelyabinsk Region is produced by thermal stations. The total capacity of power stations located in the Chelyabinsk Region approaches 5000 MW. In 2006 the enterprises of the Chelyabinsk Region produced 27437.3 million kWh of electrical power, 492147.5 thousand Gcal of thermal power.
The work of 7 electrical power stations considerably influences the normal life of the region. Power stations of the region meet over 70% of the total demand of the region for electrical power.
Among thermal power stations of the Chelyabinsk Region there are stations of industrial enterprises such as Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, “Magnesite Plant” and others. Besides, some transport, construction and agricultural organizations have thermal power stations.
Among energy selling companies in the territory of the Chelyabinsk Region there are “Chelyabenergosbyt”, “Mechel-Energo”, “Magnitogorsk Energy Company”.
The main objectives of the fuel and energy sector are efficient reformation of electrical power industry; steady work of coal industry; technical upgrading and modernization of fuel and energy complex (TEK) of the region; gasification development in industrial, electrical power engineering and public utility sectors; creation of new power generation facilities; implementation of the power saving policy and increase in usage of fuel and energy resources by means of technical and technological update of production processes followed by dramatic reduction of energy intensity.
Mining industry.
The Chelyabinsk Region is rich in various mineral resources. There are more than 300 industrial deposits of iron ore, titanomagnetite ore, copper ore, nickel, cobalt, aluminum ore, ore and placer deposits of gold.
The Chelyabinsk Region is a monopolist in Russia in mining and processing of kaolin and graphite (95%), magnesite (95%), talc (70%). Mining enterprises extract 25% of Russian zinc, 15% of copper, 15% of iron, 37% of facing stone.
Over 150 enterprises of the region are engaged in deposit development and processing of mineral raw materials and get different processed products.
The Chelyabinsk Region is the region with high level of exploitation of mineral resources. And first of all, it concerns deposits of metals (iron, copper, zinc, nickel, gold). Less explored are deposits of non-metallic resources, namely facing and ornamental stone, chemical and ore mining raw materials (vermiculite, phosphorite, quartz sand, etc.). Recycling of mining and metallurgical wastes containing many noble, rare, ferrous and non-ferrous metals in industrial concentrations is still at the initial stage; there is a problem of extraction of associated components from complex ores.
The Government of the Chelyabinsk Region constantly holds contests for development of deposits of popular mineral resources including non-metallic construction materials in order to promote mining sector development and increase its output in the territory of the region.
Construction and Construction Industry
Capital construction is dynamically developing in the Chelyabinsk Region. In 2007 over 12.5 billion rubles including budgetary funds are spent on construction. In 2006 over 1 million of sq.meters of living spaces became available (121.2% compared to 2005) including 483 thousand sq.meters which were put into service by individual developers; construction of two schools for 525 pupils, three health institutions for 198 patients, three sport projects were finished, metropolitan construction is continued. In 2007 construction of the federal cardiology centre, where it is planned to perform 10 thousand operations per year, was started.
More than 400 enterprises of construction sector and building materials industry, situated in the territory of the region, continuously supply building projects with their products. In 2006, compared to 2005, the output of cement grew by 9.0 %, production of large-panel and large-block building structures - by 59.%, brick output - by 8.5%; the output of other building materials, structures and products also increased. With the existing volume of construction and its annual growth enterprises of the construction industry are mostly provided with local raw materials, reserves of which are sufficient in the region.
A number of construction enterprises and building material enterprises of the region constantly undergo modernization and retooling; new facilities are put into operation.
Besides, many other enterprises of the construction sector undergo reconstruction and modernization, introduce new technologies for construction of houses of different structures and production of up-to-date building materials, structures and products.
Agroindustrial sector
Despite a number of external factors preventing the development of agriculture (zone of risk agriculture, high level of urbanization in the region, etc.) the agroindustrial sector holds an important position in the economy of the Chelyabinsk Region - its share in the Gross Regional Product totaled 8.3% in 2006.
The greater part of the agricultural output is produced by the crop growing sector - 51.8%, cereal crop growing prevails. In 2006 cereal crop production made 2114.7 thousand tons per year (weight after reprocessing), meat - 185.9 thousand tons (live weight), milk - 568.4 thousand tons, eggs -1234.0 mln pieces. The Chelyabinsk Region has a large crop area which totaled 1852.1 thousand ha in 2006.
At the beginning of 2007 the population in the rural area was 652.4 thousand people or 18.5% of the total population of the region.
Investment in agriculture amounted to over 2.5 billion rubles. Special attention is paid to strengthening the material and technical base by means of equipment leasing, industrial reconstruction, introduction of up-to-date technologies. In 2006 thanks to leasing 504 items of agricultural machinery were purchased for 369 million rubles.
Communication
The Chelyabinsk Region is characterized by a high level of development of information and communications technologies. According to a number of development indicators such as net digitalization level, amount of exploited new technologies, Internet services the region ranks among the top ten constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Nowadays the Chelyabinsk Region has reached 100%- digitalization of intra-zone primary net. All cities and district centres of the region are provided with automatic intercity direct dialing. The technical resources available make it possible to provide users with almost any modern communication services.
In 2006 the volume of communication services totaled 12980.5 million rubles which is 56.3% more than in the previous year.
Within the recent years cellular services have been spread more and more widely. As of the beginning of 2007 the major cellular operators in the Chelyabinsk Region are: GSM - Chelyabinsk division of Interregional branch of cellular communication of “Uralsvyazinform”, “Mobile TeleSystems” (MTS), “Ural GSM” (“Megafon”), “Vympelkom” (Beeline GSM), “Chelyabinsk Cellular Communication” (TELE2); IS-95 (CDMA) - “Uralsvyazinform”.
At present a unified communication medium of the Chelyabinsk Region is established on the basis of “Transtelecom’s” segment of the main optical fiber communication line. The network covers the major part of the Chelyabinsk Region and goes through not only cities and towns, but almost each station of the South Ural Railway can have a dedicated channel. This communication line can transmit about 30 thousand communication channels.