The list of IT companies that meet the conditions for providing their employees with preferential mortgages has increased by more than 1 thousand organizations, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.

There are more than 10 thousand companies in the updated register. To be included in this list, an organization must be accredited by the Ministry of Finance and receive tax benefits. The list is regularly updated based on the data of the Federal Tax Service.

Employees of IT companies who meet the following criteria can apply for a preferential mortgage:

– Russian citizenship;

– work in an accredited IT company that enjoys tax benefits;

– age from 22 to 44 years inclusive;

– salary (before deduction of personal income tax): from 150 thousand rubles in cities with millions and from 100 thousand rubles for employees of IT companies from other localities. The amount for the last three months before applying for a loan is taken into account.

Until 2024, at least 50 thousand specialists will be able to use the program, and the total amount of loans will amount to more than 240 billion rubles. The maximum rate is 5% (a number of regions can reduce it by regional programs to 2% or 1%). The initial payment must be at least 15%, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.

SUE “Passagiravtotrans” of St. Petersburg announced three auctions for the purchase of a total of 105 single-section buses, it follows from the materials on the website of the unified information system in the field of public procurement.

According to the documentation, in two auctions we are talking about the purchase of 25 large-class diesel buses with a 100% low floor level location.

Applications for two auctions will be accepted until July 18. 25 buses under one of the contracts should be handed over to the customer by the end of September, under the second – by the end of October this year.

The initial price of each of the two contracts is 499.2 million rubles.

According to the third auction, St. Petersburg intends to purchase 55 medium-class diesel buses with 100% low floor level.

Applications for the auction will also be accepted until July 18. 25 buses should arrive by the end of October, another 30 – by the end of November this year.

The initial price of the contract is 769.5 million rubles.

“The purpose of this purchase is to update the fleet of buses for social transportation instead of buses that have worked out their operational life. The replacement of rolling stock will improve the quality of passenger transportation, increase the safety of passenger bus transportation on social routes,” follows from the terms of reference posted on the public procurement website.

Earlier, Passazhiravtotrans has already purchased 48 single-section buses of a large class, which should arrive in the city by September 2022, as well as 35 two-section buses of a particularly large class. This technique should appear in St. Petersburg before November 15 of this year.

The shareholders of the developer “PIK” approved the decision not to pay dividends for 2021, the company said.

Last year, PIK transferred to shareholders 22.51 rubles per share by the end of 2020 and another 22.92 rubles per share for the first quarter of 2021 – a total of about 30 billion rubles.

According to the results of the meeting, the board of directors of “PIKK (MCX:PIKK)” included the company’s managers Yuri Ilyin, Dmitry Timofeev, Ilya Balandin, Ivan Polandov, Gennady Rosso, a representative of the main shareholder Alexey Karpenko, as well as independent Alexey Blanin, Zumrud Rustamova and Natalia Yakovleva. The main shareholder and head of PIK, Sergey Gordeev, who was previously a member of the board of directors, was not nominated for re-election.

GC PIK is the largest Russian development company. The controlling shareholder is Gordeev. The company’s shares are traded on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

The number of oil and gas drilling rigs operating in the world in June increased for the second month in a row and reached a maximum in more than two years – since March 2020, according to data from the American oilfield services company Baker Hughes.

On average, 1,706 installations were operating in the world last month, compared to 1,628 in May. At the same time, the June level is 381 units higher than the figure for the same month in 2021.

In the United States, the number of drilling rigs last month increased by 78 compared to May and amounted to 739, which is also the highest figure since March 2020. In Canada, their number increased by 50 to 143.

The number of installations over the past month in the Asia-Pacific region increased by 3 (to 196), in Europe – by 8 (to 87), in Africa – by 2 (to 78), in Latin America – by 5 (to 160). Meanwhile, in the Middle East, their number decreased by 11 to 303.

Baker Hughes has been publishing data on operating drilling rigs since 1944. At first, the company collected information only in the USA and Canada, since 1975 – worldwide. Since June 2019, it has included in its calculations the number of drilling rigs in Ukraine, while there has been no recalculation of summary data for Europe for previous periods in this regard.

The average monthly number of operating oil and gas drilling rigs in the world last year increased to 1,361 from the historical minimum of 1,352 recorded at the end of 2020. The record was reached in 1981 – 5624 installations.

The German automaker Audi AG, part of the Volkswagen group (ETR:VOWG), and the Chinese FAW have begun construction of a plant for the production of electric vehicles in Changchun, located in the northeast of China. The companies plan to complete it at the end of 2024, the Xinhua news agency reports.

The capacity of the enterprise is designed to produce 150 thousand cars per year. Initially, it is planned to produce models A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron.

Audi owns a controlling stake in the joint venture Audi FAW NEV Co. The German company’s investments in it and the construction of the plant amount to 2.6 billion euros.

Two out of three electric vehicles sold in the first quarter of this year were purchased by buyers in China, according to calculations by PwC Strategy.

The Chinese market is the largest in the world in terms of sales of cars with electric motors. In January-May, the country sold over 2 million cars powered by new energy sources (NEV), which is more than double the figure for the same period last year, according to the Chinese Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). NEV accounts for 21% of the country’s car market.

China is also the largest market for German automakers, accounting for 39% of sales in January-March, according to Ernst & Young calculations.

In 2021, Audi sold almost 701.3 thousand cars on the Chinese market.

American automaker General Motors Co. (NYSE:GM) disappointed investors with its profit forecast for the second quarter of this year amid a shortage of semiconductor components.

According to GM’s forecast, the company’s profit in April-June amounted to $1.6-1.9 billion, while analysts surveyed by FactSet expected this figure at $2.46 billion.

The company notes that about 95 thousand cars are waiting for certain microchips and cannot be sold before they arrive.

At the same time, GM confirmed its forecast for the current year as a whole, providing for net income in the range of $9.6 billion to $11.2 billion, as well as adjusted earnings of $5.76 to $6.76 per share.

GM shares, which were falling during the preliminary session, are gaining 3% in price at the beginning of trading on Friday. Since the beginning of this year, the company’s capitalization has fallen by 44% to $46.3 billion.