Today in Russian Business – Nov 24, 2011

Acting Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has acknowledged that Russia’s economic stability would be severely jeopardized if oil was to fall to $30 dollars a barrel.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Siluanov has said he is ‘ready for the situation to worsen’ as global financial turmoil threatens to erode high crude prices.   Chris Shiells, an emerging-market strategist at Informa Global Markets, discusses the undervaluation of the ruble in a video interview with Bloomberg.  Russian foreign direct investment apparently jumped 43% to $11.7 billion in the year through September compared with the same period a year ago, with finance, manufacturing and mining receiving the most capital.  Achieving an ‘absolute record’ in the country’s production history, Russia has produced 3.5 million metric tons of sugar from beets to date.  Russian prosecutors have reportedly asked Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant for Bank of Moscow former Chief Executive Officer Andrei Borodin and Dmitry Akulinin, a former vice president at the lender, over fraud allegations.  In a rare instance of environmental reparations, the Baikalsky pulp-and-paper mill will pay a fine of 11,900 million rubles for environmental damage inflicted on Lake Baikal.  Impoverished Kyrgyzstan has a plethora of reasons to join the Russia led customs union, says its acting prime minister.  Many Russians enjoy drinking Putinka vodka, named after the Prime Minster.  The Financial Times wonders if a new brand, with the unlikely namesake Gadaffi, will have the same appeal.