MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia decided to ban imports of raw vegetables from the European Union because of inaction by EU regulators over a deadly E.coli outbreak, the head of Russia’s consumer protection watchdog told Reuters.

“The kind of things that have been happening in the EU for a whole month do not even happen in African countries,” Gennady Onishchenko, head of Rospotrebnadzor state agency, told Reuters by telephone.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia banned imports of fresh vegetables from the European Union Thursday, accusing Brussels of sowing chaos by failing to give sufficient information about a deadly E.coli outbreak.

The European Commission said Moscow’s move was disproportionate. The outbreak has killed 17 people and made more than 1,500 others ill, and food poisoning is spreading from Germany across Europe.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of a group negotiating Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation has instructed its members to try to finish the process by the end of 2011, a Russian source close to the talks told Reuters.

Negotiators are now expected to accelerate to iron out remaining differences such as improving investment conditions for foreign car makers and curbing state support for agriculture, meat imports, and veterinary controls.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Italian carmaker Fiat SpA will invest $1.1 billion and build 120,000 cars a year in Russia to take advantage of state investment incentives and a recovering car industry, Russia’s Economy Ministry said.

The company, which was left without a local Russian partner after a proposed deal with Sollers fell through earlier this year, has been drawing up plans to go it alone and may finalize a deal this week, the ministry’s senior official in charge of car assembly negotiations Dmitry Levchenkov told reporters.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Tuesday it would finalise a major gas supply deal with China in time for a visit in mid-June by President Hu Jintao, wrapping up years of talks to open a new export route to the world’s biggest energy market.

Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said he had reached broad agreement at a meeting in Moscow with his counterpart Wang Qishan to supply China with 68 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year of gas over a timespan of 30 years.

MOSCOW, May 31 (Reuters) – Russia hopes to finalise a gas
supply deal with China by June 10 to export 68 billion cubic
metres (bcm) per year for 30 years, Deputy Prime Minister Igor
Sechin said on Tuesday.

Under a draft accord discussed at bilateral energy talks,
Russia would supply 30 bcm per year of gas through a western
route from Siberia into northwest China, and a further 38 bcm
down its Pacific coast into the Chinese northeast, he said.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia, May 27 (Reuters) – Finance Minister
Alexei Kudrin said on Friday that the Russian government may
increase mineral extraction tax (MET) on gas gradually over
three years, rather than raise it substantially next year.

Shares in Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) rallied by 3.7 percent on the
news as Kudrin’s comments eased fears the state-controlled gas
export monopoly, which accounts for 80 percent of Russian
output, would be tapped to finance election spending.

MOSCOW, May 26 (Reuters) – Russian federal spending will
grow in line with the economy over the next two years as the
government targets a balanced budget by 2015, Finance Minister
Alexei Kudrin said on Thursday.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting to review fiscal strategy,
Kudrin said spending would rise by 3-4 percent a year in real
terms in 2012 and 2013, and in nominal terms by 8-10 percent.

PSKOV, Russia (Reuters) – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday invited motorists, home owners and charity volunteers to join a new movement which should help his United Russia party win a parliamentary election later this year.

Putin, Russia’s most popular politician despite formally being second in command to his hand-picked successor President Dmitry Medvedev, met activists in the ancient city of Pskov in western Russia.

MINSK/ASTANA, May 19 (Reuters) – Russia and other ex-Soviet
states on Thursday backed Grigory Marchenko, head of
Kazakhstan’s central bank, to run the International Monetary
Fund after the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

A Reuters poll of about 60 economists from all over the
world found that France’s Christine Lagarde was the clear
frontrunner to succeed Strauss-Kahn. [ID:nLDE74H1QG]