Consumer goods giant Unilever is committed to investing in Russia and expects an improvement in market conditions from mid-year. TULA, Russia, March 11 (Reuters) - Consumer goods giant Unilever is committed to investing in Russia and expects an improvement in market conditions from mid-year, the head of its Russian business told Reuters.

"We continue to invest very strongly in Russia because we believe in the long-term potential of the country. It has 140 million consumers with a very high level of per capita income and high levels of per capita consumption," Sanjive Kakkar told Reuters in an interview.

He said Unilever, the maker of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Dove soap and Lipton tea, was confident Russia's tough consumer spending climate could improve over the summer months.

"The market conditions remain quite tight and quite difficult. (But) as GDP growth begins to pick up we hope that consumer spending will return to growth and to some degree of normality by the middle of the year," he said.


GROWTH POTENTIAL

Anglo-Dutch Unilever, the third largest food and consumer goods group in the world, last year pledged to invest more than $140 million in the construction of a factory in the city of Tula, near Moscow, in 2009-14.

It also bought Russia's leading ketchup producer Baltimor, reportedly for 2.4 billion roubles ($81 million), and ice cream maker Inmarko.

"For both our food as well as personal care and the ice cream business we think this is a market with a long potential, so we invest. We invest behind our brands, we invest in production facilities," Kakkar said, adding that the company was also open to more acquisitions on the Russian market.

"Russia is a key market for us for growth. One part of our growth strategy is through acquiring businesses as we acquired Inmarko and Baltimor."

"We are always on the lookout for acquisitions that are a good strategic fit to our business. We are extremely satisfied with Russia as a market, it's very, very attractive for us."