The annulment of export quotas on wine in the trade between Moldova and Macedonia will open new markets for the national producers, the director of the National Office of Vine and Wine Dumitru Munteanu stated for IPN.

“As far as I know, we do not export wine to Macedonia, probably owing to the existing restrictions. The market of Macedonia is not simple as this country produces and exports a lot of wine in bulk to the European states. However, any eliminated barrier leads to new business partnerships and the annulment of the export quotas will bring only benefits to our producers. We do not think that the wines of Macedonia can pose a threat to the internal market of Moldova,” said Dumitru Munteanu.

He also said that the target market for the Moldovan wine producers is now Romania, to which exports rose by 60% over the last ten months. Wine exports to Germany grew by 18%, to Poland by 2.5% to 4 million liters, while to the Czech Republic – to 2.5 million liters. “Once, we exported 100,000 bottles of wine to Poland annually and were glad,” stated the director of the National Office of Vine and Wine.

However, Dumitru Munteanu noted that compared with the market of Russia, the new markets are not sufficiently large, but the exports to the EU are on the rise.

On February 25, Deputy Minister of Economy Octavia Calmac will sign in Brussels the additional protocol between Moldova and Macedonia to the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA). By it, the export quotas on wine will be annulled. The signing of this document will allow fully liberalizing trade with the CEFTA member states.