Will the departure of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov cause the capital’s real estate market to wobble? wonders the Moscow Times. This article looks at Russia’s increasing interest in Singapore with three memorandums of understanding signed yesterday during the fifth Russia-Singapore Business Forum. As part of its bid to join the WTO, Russia has agreed to slash farm subsidies by 50% by 2017: today’s sum of $9 billion a year will drop to $4.4 billion. Despite reports to the contrary, Rio Tinto has denied it has any interest in purchasing a stake in Russian potash producer Uralkali. As Russia’s automobile sector looks to reinvigorate itself with foreign technology, carmaker GAZ plans to initiate a joint venture with China’s FAW Group to manufacture trucks in the Urals. According to statistics published in Finans magazine, for the first time in four years, in 2009 cumulative revenue for Russia’s biggest 500 companies dropped by 3% over the previous year.