The Finance Ministry on Friday published a draft of a long-awaited bill that could lower the limit on the value of personal purchases that can enter Russia customs-free from 1,000 euros ($1360) to 150 euros ($204).
Russia-based Internet retailers have long complained that the current threshold gives foreign retailers an unfair advantage, allowing them to slash prices below those offered by domestic retailers, who have to pay taxes and customs duties on the goods they import to Russia.

With the milestone agreement to create a Eurasian economic union clinched in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Russia put cheap energy resources at the head of its drive to pull former Soviet states away from European integration and into its orbit.
The Eurasian Economic Union agreement, signed by the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in the Kazakh capital of Astana, will come into force on Jan. 1, 2015. It envisages the gradual integration of the three former Soviet countries' economies, establishing free trade, unbarred financial interaction and unhindered labor migration. The pact combines the previous agreements reached between the three countries under the Customs Union and the Single Economic Space, which were formed in 2010 and 2011 and have been generally considered a success.

International shipping companies are canceling consumer package services in Russia, as a new range of customs requirements are likely to raise fees and extend processing times for goods ordered from online stores based abroad.
 The changes, ostensibly intended to simplify assessment of customs fees for consumer goods shipped from other countries, require that each shipment be assessed individually rather than in bulk, a statement on UPS’s Russian website said.
 “This change has led to a dramatic increase in formal customs entries, resulting in significant delays in delivery of packages to private individuals in Russia,” the statement said. “As such, UPS is currently unable to meet its published time commitments for any dutiable shipments going to Russia intended for private use.”

A leading lawmaker in Uzbekistan on Wednesday poured cold water on the prospect of the Central Asian nation joining a Moscow-led trade bloc, saying that relations with Russia would continue to be developed on a one-on-one basis.
Sodik Safayev, head of the Senate’s foreign affairs committee and a former foreign minister, was responding to remarks by a top Uzbek official the day before that appeared to signal a potential shift of course by the ex-Soviet nation.

Russian specialists will build Vietnam's first nuclear power plant, with the first two units to go into operation in 2023 and 2024, President Vladimir Putin wrote in a statement published in Vietnamese mass media on Monday.
In the letter, which coincides with the president's scheduled visit to Vietnam on Tuesday, Putin touted the "all-encompassing" strategic partnership between the two countries.
Russia-Vietnamese bilateral trade rose 20 percent in 2012 to $3.66 billion, and there are mutual plans to increase that figure to $7 billion by 2015 and $10 billion by 2020, Putin wrote.
With these goals in mind, Russia "is counting on successfully closing" an agreement to establish a free trade zone between Vietnam and the Russian-led Customs Union, negotiations for which are ongoing, he added.

Russia could launch multibillion-dollar joint projects with Ukraine aimed at diversifying the country's economy if Kiev fails to sign a European Union association agreement, a Russian presidential adviser on regional economic integration has said.
 In the interview with Expert magazine, to be published Monday, Sergei Glazyev said Russia planned to offer Kiev the projects that "will significantly increase the capacities of Ukraine's economy, making it more diversified, science-based and stable."

The European Union's most important decision this fall will be whether to sign an association agreement with Ukraine at the EU summit in Vilnius Nov. 28 -29. The issue will turn on whether Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fulfills one vital condition: a full pardon for political prisoner and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
 The association agreement, which runs to some 1,200 pages, would remove almost all EU tariffs on Ukrainian goods, boosting the country's long-term gross domestic product by an estimated 12 percent. It would also establish a political, economic and legal reform plan for the country, supported by about 60 state agencies in EU member countries.

Investigators and security service agents on Wednesday raided the Moscow offices of the Federal Customs Service over what investigators said was a case of suspected bribery by a customs official.
It is unusual for the Investigative Committee and Federal Security Service to conduct such a raid on a federal agency, and the customs service quickly bristled in response, calling it an "unsanctioned intrusion."