Russia officially joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), as a protocol for the country’s accession was signed late on December 16. The protocol was inked by Russia’s Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina and the WTO’s Director General Pascal Lamy. At a conference on December 16, the organization’s members approved a package of documents that cleared the way for Russia’s membership.

Russia plans to intensify economic integration in the post-Soviet space and expects the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with Belarus and Kazakhstan to come into existence by 2015, President Dmitry Medvedev said in December.

The pause in the talks on a new basic agreement between Russia and the European Union can be ended with the signing of the documents on Russia’s accession to the WTO in Geneva on December 16, 2011, said Russia’s permanent representative to the E.U., Vladimir Chizhov.

First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia Alexei Ulyukayev has said he thinks the world’s economy will never again see annual growth of more than 5%.

The World Bank’s projects in Russia range in sectors and geography from strengthening of the banking and the financial systems to swine breeding, from the support of local socio-economic initiatives in Dagestan to improving preschool education in Yakutia.

Public protests over presumed parliamentary election fraud will not affect Russia’s investment attractiveness. “It is too early to say whether the fluctuations of our stock indices were caused by the election or by jitters around the Euro Zone,” said Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach.

In the first eleven months of 2011, the Russian federal budget’s revenues administered by the federal Tax Service grew 39.6% compared to the same period of last year and amounted to RUR4.029tn ($127.3bn, or (Euro)96.3bn), the service reported.

In November 2011, industrial production in Russia grew 3.9% year-on-year, with mining up 1.3%, manufacturing 4.9%, and production and distribution of electricity, gas and water, 3.2%, the Economic Development Ministry said in a report on the country’s economic situation in January-November.

Capital outflows from Russia appear to have risen sharply in the fourth quarter, but are not currently high enough to affect the country’s BBB rating, Fitch Ratings said in a statement.

Russia needs a decisive “tax manoeuvre” and should consider optimizing the taxes that determine qualitative economic growth. “We need a modern structure of the tax system,” said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the anniversary conference of the national business association Delovaya Rossiya.

The Russian economy will grow 4.2%-4.5% this year, said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during the live TV program “A Conversation with Vladimir Putin: Continued.”

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin believes that the Russian Central Bank is pursuing a cautious lending policy at a time when external risks for the country’s economy are growing.

President Dmitry Medvedev has signed the law on the federal budget for 2012 and the planning period of 2013 and 2014, the Kremlin press office reported.

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak does not think that political risks have had any fundamental influence on the Russian stock market.

The Federal Financial Markets Service in 2011 cancelled 578 securities broker/dealer licences, the regulator’s head, Dmitry Pankin, told reporters.

The new charter of the merged MICEX-RTS exchange has become effective. The company will be transformed from a closed joint-stock company into an open one. The merged infrastructure will become functional at the beginning of 2012.

Russia’s Finance Ministry is lobbying for amending Russian laws on banking, on the Bank of Russia, and on currency regulation and control to ban new foreign bank branches in Russia.

Bank VTB24 said its auto loans portfolio reached RUR70bn ($2.2bn, or (Euro)1.7bn) in 2011, growing 35%, which is faster than the market’s average.

Russian energy companies are ready to resume operation in Libya, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko told the Rossiya 24 TV network.

Rosneft expects in February to sign a deal with ExxonMobil on operating in North America, the Russian company’s chief Eduard Khudainatov told reporters.

Ukraine is concerned that it has no guarantee for natural gas transit through its transport system either from Russia as seller or the European Union as buyer.

It has been said repeatedly that Russia’s geology sector is in poor condition, cumbersome, with enterprises scattered and badly coordinated. This gave rise to the idea of consolidation and creating a state holding that would combine all of these assets prepared to operate on market principles.

Gazprom Neft intends to develop new oil-export destinations to Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, Vitaly Vyatkin, the managing director of Gazprom Neft subsidiary Gazprom Neft Trading GmbH, said during an interview with the Gazprom corporate journal.

Russia still has no intention of removing Gazprom’s export monopoly, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said in an interview with the Russian daily Kommersant.

Russian-British oil major TNK-BP is looking to step up exploration operation inside and outside of Russia and could invest as much as $800 million for that purpose over the next five years.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller that the implementation of the South Stream underwater gas pipeline project depends on gas talks with Ukraine.

According to the State Statistics Service, Russian companies produced 423.7mn metric tons (3.11bn bbl) of oil in January-October 2010, up 0.7% year-on-year.

In January-October 2011, Russia’s oil exports to non-C.I.S. countries fell 4.2% in physical terms year-on-year, to 176.7mn metric tons (1.3bn bbl), but grew 33.9% in money terms, to $138.248bn, the Federal Customs Service said.

Primary oil refining in Russia in January-November 2011 increased 2.6% year-on-year, to 233mn metric tons (1.71bn bbl), RBC writes, citing Energy Ministry materials.

Novatek will increase its gas output 40% this year, said Leonid Mikhelson, board chairman of Russia’s largest independent gas producer.

Russia increased gas production 3.6% in January-November 2011, to 608.159 bcm (21.47 tcf). Gas exports went up 9.2% year-on-year, to 178.078 bcm (6.29 tcf), writes the CDU TEK central dispatching department of the fuel and energy sector.

According to reports citing Deutsche Welle, German utility RWE and Russia’s Gazprom have terminated talks on joint power generation ventures “upon mutual consent.”

Investment in Russia’s pharmaceutical industry will total RUR122bn ($3.9bn, or (Euro)2.9bn) until 2020, Sergei Tsyb, the Industry and Trade Ministry official responsible for the chemical and bioengineering segments said.

Russia’s Space Agency, Roscosmos, plans to secure at least RUR50bn ($1.6bn, or (Euro)1.2bn) worth of low-interest loans from the Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (VEB).

Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP), a large Russian stevedoring and port services company, said that its net profit for January-September 2011 calculated to IFRS fell 86%, to $32.163mn from $227.965mn in the same period of last year.

Russia’s Transport Ministry has proposed granting the licence to make long-distance flights until 2014 only to the carriers which operate at least eight aircraft seating more than 55 passengers.

Renova Group plans to enter the market of regional air transportation, Viktor Vekselberg, the group’s board chairman, said on the backstage of the forum Russia-Europe: The Prospects of a Unified Transport Network.

Russia’s car maker AvtoVAZ and the Renault-Nissan alliance will start assembling their Lada Largus cars in February 2012.

Rolf Import, the official Mitsubishi Motors distributor in Russia, sold a record number of vehicles, 8 004, in November, while the brand’s sales in January-November rose 67% year-on-year.

Russia’s largest carmaker AvtoVAZ said it increased its total car sales in Russia in January-November, including sales of Super-Avto and LLC United Automobile Group, which produces cars at IzhAvto, 13.4% year-on-year, to 535 215 vehicles.

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has cleared the local subsidiary of Microsoft, Microsoft International Holdings BV, to buy the Russian division of Skype, the Internet communications company.

The Russian government has approved a strategy for the country’s innovation-based development until 2020. A respective executive order has been added to the database of federal regulatory and executive acts.

The legislative assembly of the northwest Russian Leningrad Region has adopted a law on state support to companies operating in the regional industrial and technology parks.

State support to Russia’s agricultural sector after its accession to the World Trade Organization will remain sufficient for the sector’s development.

The output of nitrogen fertilizer grew 5.2% in Russia in the period from January to the end of November 2011, to 7.1mn metric tons (100% nutrient content), Russia’s State Statistics Service reported.

Russian developers LSR Group and Coalco Development have agreed to build a 105 000 sq m (1.1mn sq ft) executive class residential community in southern Moscow.

The turnover of the SU-155 developer reached RUR78.7bn ($2.5bn, or (Euro)1.9bn, excluding VAT) in 2011. The company said it invested RUR44.7bn in construction and more than RUR1.1bn in upgrading and retooling its production facilities (down 32% year-on-year).

The amount of personal housing loans, including mortgage loans, in roubles and foreign currency provided in Russia in January-October 2011 grew 6.3%, to RUR1.377tn ($44.6bn, or (Euro)33.2bn) from RUR1.295tn at the beginning of the year.

Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian people seem to be missing the Soviet empire more than ten or fifteen years ago. Polls show strong persistent nostalgia for the Soviet era.