The use of platinum group metals in the technique is steadily growing, the world production of primary metals does not allow to cover all the needs of the world market. Therefore, the issues related to the implementation of programs on recycled platinum and more sophisticated processing technologies securing minimal losses, become paramount.

The article considers the current state and development trends of the world market of platinoids and secondary metals. In recent years , a number of major deposits in South Africa suffered depletion, the sales of platinum group metals from GOKHRAN Russia stockpiles dropped thus exacerbating the problems of the global platinoids market.

The article draws attention to the following trends: increase of platinoids recycling and growing production of secondary met­als, substantial reserves provides extracting of platinum group metals from exhausted catalysts of the petrochemical industry and exhausted gases catalysts of cars.

The creation of automobile catalysts processing industry allows to return annually up to 5 t of the secondary platinoids , cor­respondingly $250 mln, a substantial contribution to the Russian economy.

The article considers the current situation with the REM global production and application. Basic data on global REM production and consumption are presented. The REM necessity is grounded. REM is shown to present the basis of new technologies servicing the needs of the modern society such as energy saving technologies and alternative energy sources, environment protection, miniaturization of digital technologies. REM are essential for the most advanced economy sectors (the term “essential” means, that the material in question can not be substituted by an other without substantial deterioration in the properties of the final product.
The article describes the main stages and factors in creation of the REM industry in China, the principal of them are :
– the USA and Europe policy to transfer rare earth metals technologies and equipment to China in pursuit of raw materials and cheap labor;
– the active support of the rare-earth metal industry by the Chinese government.

The article deals with the problems of the “lean production” system implementation. By dynamic changes in the environment, local changes, often presenting a disordered and messy process, bring mostly often only a short-term effect. One of Decisive factors helping to increase the competitiveness of the company is the development and implementation of ”lean production”, allowing , without additional capital expenditures, to reduce costs and the cycle time as well as to significantly improve the quality of product and services.. The principle of the “lean production” system is the synthesis of the value of the final product emerging from the reduction of various costs, losses and waste in each area of the custom value creation.
Described are in detail necessary and sufficient conditions ensuring the continuity of innovation. In this case, the company is regarded as an open complex socio-technical system. Particular attention is given to overcoming the psychological problems encountered by staff in the implementation of innovations.
The continuity of the process – beginning with the vision, how the company head regards it , what kind of the solution idea he has , what is his intuition of the market development and farther to the engineer having the ability to transform the idea into drawings, to the worker able to transform the drawing into actual construct is the basis of the :”lean production” system at an enterprise.

The need to study the titanium metal fund can be explained by the following circumstances :
– titanium and its alloys present the advanced materials of the XXI century. Titanium products are the base of the high-tech equipment;
– the sustainable development of titanium branch requires the rational use of available resources and optimization of the titanium circulation;
– the export having been intensified since 1990’s can entail depletion of titanium metal fund in Russia, making it necessary to develop and implement a package of measures to prevent the negative consequences of the trend.
During different periods of USSR and the Russian Federation development the estimation of the ferrous metals fund has been carried out. Different methods has been applied. The article is dedicated to the analysis of methods employed.
It is noted that the most reliable method is the estimate of metal investments based on the account of apparent consumption of metal products ( for evaluation both of ferrous and non-ferrous metals fund). The article presents the first methodical approach in Russia based on accounting the cycle process in using titanium products.

The introduction of the “import substitution” concept dates back to the middle of the XIX century, when a number of countries began to discuss the need for its implementation. The definition of “import substitution” is presented in many modern economic dic­tionaries and implies a reduction of the import of goods and services through the production of similar goods or services within the country.

Since the late 90’s Russia was faced with the problem of the rapid growth of import accompanied by the displacement of domestic producers from traditional internal markets.

At present, the scientific literature offers a small number of techniques to quantify the import substitution in different industry branches. The article presents the analysis of existing methods with their positive aspects and drawbacks.

The authors propose their own method of the qualitative evaluation of the import substitution based on analysis of the national accounting system. An analysis of the import shares of different industry products in the Volga federal district in the period 2007 -2011 is presented.. The authors introduce generalized indices to evaluate the import shares of different industry products in the Volga federal district in the period 2007 –2011.

Considering the penetration of the energy in all spheres of the modern society the reliability of electric power presents one of the most crucial components of securing the economic and national safety.
The paper defines the main threats to energy security affecting the economic and national security of the state. The paper discriminates and defines in detail the following threats : these of the foreign policy, connected with nature, with social policy, with management and law, technogenic and economic threads, threads to fail as the reliable supplier, threads of substantial damage.
The features of the electro energetic systems are defined which require the evaluation of the energy security. The reliability indexes of the energy elements and systems, the analysis of major serious accidents and their impact on the economy are presented. The possible ways to ensure the energy security are discussed.

The strategy of innovative development of the Russian Federation until 2020 charts a course to create a sustainable national innovation system and the development of the economy sectors. The strategy is based on the fact that the further development of Russia should be based on the growth of knowledge-intensive, high-tech and affective strategy sectors. One of the principal mechanisms for the Russia’s development is the strengthening cooperation between public authorities and business as a prerequisite for further effective development of the national economy.
The international experience of public-private partnership to finance various projects is evaluated. The correlation between the country development level and the industry branches chosen to attract PPP investments is noted. The Russian economy regards as priority areas for PPP implementation the following areas: development of production and transport infrastructure, communal utility branch, health care and social services, financing of scientific researches having prospects for commercialization and development of innovation infrastructure.
In using the public-private partnership while maintaining the leading role of the state all the advantages becomes effective. The state is the major initiator and guarantor of national (nationally important) obligations concerning the financing and fulfillment of projects.
The attention is drawn to the fact that the Russian Federation lacks the unified federal law on the private-public partnership. Separate provisions governing the PPP are considered It is postulated that for Russia the primary importance bear not the extension of the already implemented PPP mechanisms but rather creating the institutional and regulatory framework which would constitute standards providing the maximal comfort for the sides of the partnership and benefit the public utility of projects planned.

Currently, the first stage of activity in creating the industry cluster “Titanium valley” performed in the frame of the special economic zone (SEZ) is close to its finish. This circumstance will make it possible to move to a higher – postindustrial economic development level with predominant innovative sector, knowledge industry and the human capital as the main intensive development factor.
Clusters must become hotpots of the post-industrial society ensuring the formation of the basis for itsr sustainable development.
Inside the cluster there emerges a ney type of ties based on net coworking.
The paper describes the analysis of compliance between titanium cluster parameters and requirements of the sustainable branch development and establishes that ties between economic entities in the cluster provide qualitative changes in integration processes.
The study reveals that a titanium cluster possesses a significant development potential which being realized must ensure the branch the most complete accordance with sustainable development requirements.

One way to integrate university research into industry is the creation of higher educational institutions in the Russian Federation providing the educational and scientific cooperation of universities with industry on the basis of the cluster approach.
The basic premise of establishing such structures is the necessity to form in the frame of a cluster a technological platform basing on the best technologies including the innovation technologies, which is impossible without the participation of science and education. An integrated research and education productive cluster brings together both the personnel and technological capabilities of the industrial region.
The paper discusses different options of interaction mechanism between universities and enterprises. At the example of Nizhny Novgorod region the most common approaches are analyzed: the first cluster type – several universities of different profiles and one large dominating enterprise, the second type – one technical; and one classic (or economic) university or their affiliates and several small or medium-sized industrial enterprises. The efficiency of the achieved goals is compared.

Investment in education is regarded in the contemporary Russia as the key factor accelerating innovation development and as the main “engine” of the economic growth based on the human capital. The latter is defined as “knowledge, skills, abilities and capabilities embodied in people and allowing them to create the personal, social and economic well-being”.
The innovative development of the industry is impossible without large-scale educational investments. A special role in its implementation plays the corporate sector. In order to make the education attractive for corporative investments, it is necessary to prove that the investing not only pays off, but comes back with a tangible impact. This approach implements the actual need in developing the strategy of the corporate financing of the educational activity, defining the action plan to harmonize interests of individual and society with appropriate investments of enterprises. The purpose of the strategy is the estimation of public and private investments share in the field of HPE envisaging the goal- investments must be proportional to benefits that will be assigned in the future to each party.
The article describes principal processes involved in modeling and optimization of the specific strategy in this field.

The article presents analytical results of the technical level in production of steel, structure and trends in its output. It is established that in spite of positive shifts the domestic metal production remains inferior to the world level. Dynamics of the Russian steel industry development differs from the world trends. Trends and structure of the Russian export don’t match the opportunities arising from joining the WTO. The Russian steel companies are pushed out of the high technology products market outside Russia and on the domestic market as well. The article shows that the OKDP and OKP Russian classifiers make it difficult to obtain the objective information concerning the statistical index “ready rolled ferrous metal”. The procedure is described how the index can be specified. and precised.
To improve the structure of management in steel production a special indicator of the metal products processing depth level is proposed. The essence of proposed measure – it shows the share of roll-products in the whole volume of exported products. The method is described how to compare the technology level of the Russian metal industry, this value being substantially inferior against the world best.

Arctic is regarded now by many states as the strategic region considering the enormous stocks of hydrocarbon resources and increased impact of factors and conditions underlying the political and energy security of leading world countries.
The industrial development of Arctic shelf assumes the intensive developments of hydrocarbon, biological and mineral raw materials resources, the considerable transfer of freights and, as the result, the development of service for gas and oil complex, transport and relative infrastructure..
The technological complexity of shelf projects development determines the necessity of creation and development of the infrastructure service as the necessary element of the oil and gas complex supplying. The service sector in one of the most knowledge-intensive elements in the structure. It creates conditions for increase added value at the exploration, development and production of hydrocarbon resources , promotes the growth of the personnel qualification, it reduces risks during projects implementation.
This is the reason why the creation and development of infrastructure service when developing Arctic marine shelf becomes one of the most important elements in the strategic management of the oil and gas complexes.

Modern business conditions in Russia and in the world require increased demand from the side of owners and managers who have to attend the value of the company. Many modern management strategies are based on the objective not only to achieve a good profitability, but to maximize the company value for shareholders as well. One of the most common indicators integrating different aspects of the company’s activity is the added value.
A two-dimension function created by the technology of regression models constructed in form of the second order polynom enables to:
– predict the goodwill and capitalization basing for instance on target profits, wages and depreciation;
– manage goodwill and capitalization on the basis of their impact on added value components;
– transfer the prediction models of public companies on the analog or closely related non-public companies to determine their capitalization and goodwill on the basis of results obtained in the creation of the added value.
An indirect method of managing the enterprise reputation and goodwill of public companies on the example of Russian steel companies is outlined. . It is demonstrated that the application of the added value elements as variables allows to obtain an effective model to forecast the capitalization /goodwill of the company thus indirectly influencing the competitiveness on the world market. The outlined method of managing the enterprise reputation can be adapted also by analogy to estimate the value and goodwill of non-public companies.

The success of the world economy is determined now by the ability of developed countries to generate basic innovations acquiring the form of high-tech technologies.. They shape the post-industrial society with its most important features: globalization, radical changes in the technological basis, methods of organizing of production, science and education.
The involvement of scientific and technological activity in the economic circulation should to be presently considered as the main level of the recovery of the Russian economy The competitive knowledge-based industry almost disappeared in Russia.. More than half (about 60%) Russia’s GDP is generated by exports of raw materials.
The article contains conceptual provisions of improvement the system of innovative high technology under modern conditions of the Russian Federation. The article covers the main concepts creating the conditions to implement these technologies: the substantiation of the “high-end innovative technology” definition, classification of high-technologies development stages , the financing structure , the main indicators making it possible to estimate the efficiency and financing sources.

The investment potential of the company indicates company’s opportunities to implement the current investment policy.
The main group of factors significantly influencing the enterprise’s current investment processes may include: the production strategy, the program of production and household activity; restrictions in the production scale, the versions of production technologies; possible changes in the labor force structure, logistics condition, financial support of the investment projects; the existing economic mechanism of the enterprise activity.
It becomes recently more and more urgent to build logical, structural and econometric models allowing to evaluate and select the promising areas of investment development of an enterprise. The simulation modeling allows the manager to systematize the most characteristic features, structural and functional parameters of the object, as well as to identify and access their relation to internal and external media.
The article presents the economic-mathematical model of the current investment project optimization. As the criterion of the optimal implementation of the investment project the maximization of the net profit is chosen.. The economic mathematical model allows to determine in a complex and relative approach types and numbers of units of new or additional fixed assets, which are introduced in accordance with the current investment projects, the sources and the volume of loan funds, the optimal size of capital investments and the net income in the current period.

It is believed that stock indexes reflect the state of economic and financial system as a whole. However, nominal indices denominated in currencies, subject to inflation, making it difficult to assess them on the basis of the current macroeconomic situation.This article proposes a calculation procedure for commodity equivalents of the stock market indices. Corrections of RTSI and Dow Jones values during pre-crisis periods are offered. The interconnection between the official RTSI and Dow Jones values and its commodity equivalents is detected. It is also demonstrated, that the index rise during the recovery from crisis is inflationary in nature. The main conclusion is that the economic in Russian Federation has been in stagnation from 2010 until mid-2013.The method of converting stock market indices into commodity equivalents used in this research must by no means replace the existing nominal indices, but only complement them in order to facilitate a fuller examination of the macroeconomic situation. The method of converting indices into commodities enables us to evaluate the general state of the country economics on a higher level of accuracy and to predict where the situation is heading.

The mining and geological complex and, in particular, the oil and gas industry predominate now in the economy of our country. The development of hydrocarbon deposits, contributing largely to the Russian budget negatively influences the environment both directly on the territory involved as well as beyond it. Therefore it is vital to establish the comprehensive analysis of the environmental situation on the oil and gas productive areas and to access the environmental damage (ED) in order to opportunely displace or compensate it.
One of the grounds of the negative impact provoking environmental damage are deep oil and gas wells , drilled by the state companies and later liquidated or temporarily closed down.
The article is devoted to methodological and technological issues of the economic evaluation of the environmental damage from unexploited oil and gas wells in the unallocated subsoil fund of the Russian Federation.
Analysis of the survey and comparison of the damage through separate ED components allow to make the following conclusions:
1. The largest damage arise from water pollution, because of the high (and most adequate to the current state of the situation) fine for wastewater discharge;
2. The damage from land pollution becomes significant , when the area of damaged land exceed 500 m2 and the intensity of pollution exceeds the average. The apparent underestimation of the fine paid is caused by obsolete regulation of the cost of land applied when assessing the damage.
3. The air pollution takes the lowest share of ED because of lack of substantial exhausts and the large distance between well and inhabited localities.

The crucial factor determining the transformation of the Russian economy into the innovative one is labor force or rather its quality. The generally accepted determination of quality is the definition formulated in the International Standard ISO 9000 “.. the extent to which the requirements set their own characteristics”.
The system of university management focused on achieving quality “product” – the graduated student regards students as the internal consumer of resources (intellectual capital, materials, information and financial resources) and at the same time as the major stakeholder in the university success.
At the same time the practice shows that the students are not sufficiently involved in the educational process. In our view, the are not psychologically unprepared for training in the high school , and this fact is not taken into consideration in the educational process of the university.
A special attention must be paid to the psychological status of a student. First, students are young people with not entirely shaped mentality and social and personal features.
Second, students often find themselves during the period of study in stressful situation.
The aim of the study was to determine the level of anxiety of students after the winter session . As the method the anonymous testing by Taylor was chosen (adapted by T. Nemchina). In 140 tested students the anxiety level was mostly increased : the average level with the tendency to lower was detected in 69 people while 59 students demonstrated an average anxiety level with the tendency to increase. A rather high portion of tested people presented high level of anxiety (40 persons), with 5 people showing the highest level.
The article deals with the causes of psychological problems among students. The result of this study confirm that the future professionals are not always mentally prepared for the independent activity. A serious attention must be paid to the problems of specific training of student in the course of professional education.

The effective cost management and systematic cost reduction are key factors in ensuring the competitiveness and long-term success of an enterprise. The increased pressure of competition and necessity to reduce costs require the creation of an effective cost management system .thus causing the great interest to the subject from both local and foreign researches..
The aim of the study is the analysis of the problems in creating an integrated system of cost management in industrial enterprises in Ukraine which would allow to quickly and efficiently receive and process the necessary information concerning costs.
The article examines practical aspects of organizing the cost management in Ukrainian manufacturing companies. Both major drawbacks and area of potential improvement of accounting and cost management are identified. A model of integrated cost management based on state-of-the art IT systems is proposed.
In contrast to then existing ones, the proposed scheme provides through integration of internal and book keeping data concerning kinds, targets and objects of expenditures an integrated approach to cost management. The proposed scheme applies planning, monitoring and cost analysis tools based on modern computerized resource management systems and ensures the faster and more effective decision-making.