OREANDA-NEWS. SCM's Social Partnership Programme 2012 allocated half of UAH 157.5m to develop social infrastructure of the cities and towns where the Group's businesses operate, with the main focus on health care, education and support of sports and culture for children and youth. SCM increased funding of the Social Partnership Programme by almost 57.5% against 2011.

The Social Partnership Programme (SPP) targets to improve the living standards and business environment in the towns and cities of SCM Group's operations by addressing socially important issues and implementing long-term projects jointly with the local communities.

In 2012, SPP covered 50 cities and towns with more than 2 million residents across 8 regions: Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, Lvov, Ivano-Frankovsk, Vinnitsa and Cherkassy, as well as Kiev city and AR Crimea.

SPP is carried out by SCM Group's largest industrial holdings: Metinvest (mining and metals), DTEK (power industry), Mining Machines (heavy engineering), UMG (clay production) and HarvEast (agriculture).

“We're moving step by step towards the goal set by our Shareholder: to make the cities and towns of our operations comfortable places to work and live in. We are convinced that the state of infrastructure, public utilities, health care, education, culture and sports shapes the quality of life of our employees and on performance of our businesses. We are confident that living conditions in the regions of presence can improve if we partner with local authorities and citizens of these regions. Therefore, we engage them in selecting priority destinations and projects, which are really important for people. This year we are going to invest around UAH 200m in the Social Partnership Programme,” noted SCM CEO Oleg Popov.

The main areas of investment in the Social Partnership Programmes include:

Social infrastructure

Health care

Sports

Environmental culture and efficiency

Education

Development of business environment

Culture

Local community engagement

SCM made 87% of its SPP investments of over UAH 137m in Donetsk, Lugansk and Dnepropetrovsk oblasts where most of our industrial assets operate. Under the SPP we implemented 127 projects in Donetsk Oblast (over UAH 75m); 32 in Dnepropetrovsk Oblast (over UAH 36.5m); and 30 in Lugansk Oblast (over UAH 25m).

In 2012, we contributed the most to social infrastructure development, with the investment making more than UAH 72m. In particular, SCM helped to buy passenger transport for Yenakiyevo residents, repair roads and improve the infrastructure in residential areas in Mariupol, Krivoy Rog and other towns. Also, the Group overhauled Zvezdochka kindergarten in Schastye town and a comprehensive school in Rovenki, repaired roofs of 10 multistoreyed buildings in Pershotravensk, and bought street tents for children in Kurakhovo.

We invested more than UAH 35m in healthcare and education projects and programmes, helping to buy medical equipment and repair city hospitals in Mariupol, Yenakiyevo and Krasnodon. DTEK implemented Telemedicine initiative in all regions of its presence and contributed to development of information system in Lvov children's clinic.

We spent some UAH 23m on cultural and sports purposes, helping to build two modern football pitches in Makeyevka and Krivoy Rog and Sport City in Kiev-based Hydropark.

Environmental culture and energy efficiency projects in cities and towns (not including investment in the production upgrade) absorbed nearly UAH 15m. Among key initiatives were municipal heating reform in Kiev (energy audits, heat metering systems, open classes in energy efficiency schools) and thermal refurbishment of nine preschools in Pavlograd.

We invested UAH 8.6m in development of business environment. SCM helped to set up Local Economic Development Agencies in Burshtyn, Dobrotvor and Ladyzhin, develop an integrated system of household solid waste management in Pavlograd, Ternovka and Pershotravensk and build an agricultural products sale site in Sverdlovsk.

Metinvest made the largest contribution in SPP of all SCM Group's businesses, having invested more than UAH 82m. DTEK's social investments amounted to almost UAH 60m across 8 regions of presence, while HarvEast, Mining Machines and UMG invested over UAH 16m.

In August 2013, we will publish a detailed report on the Social Partnership Programme, biggest projects and future plans on our website and sustainability portal.