President Voronin claims that we have chances of pervading any place on the globe with one million tonnes of quality grapes

“With 1 million tonnes of grapes of international quality, Moldova has all the chances of not being slandered and humiliated in any country and of pervading the entire globe with our production”, said on Wednesday, December 27, President Vladimir Voronin, present in the government building with an analysis of the current year. In the opinion of the head of state, in order to attain one million tonnes of quality grapes, Moldova will need to plant 100 thousand ha of new varieties in the next few years, so that in 10 years it can have 1000 ha of vineyards. If we will not get the new plantations, says the head of state, Moldova will continue to be “shaken” by problems similar to the embargo imposed by Russia in the current year. In general lines, says Voronin, the embargo of wines was beneficial to the R. Moldova. He recognized that the “wine-making production was made on the basis of old, bad quality plantations, and the quantity did not always coincide with the quality”. Last year, in the R. Moldova, 7 thousand ha of new sorts of vine were planted, and before last year they only managed to plant 8 thousand ha of vine, which did not yet reach fruit, mentioned the head of state. Previously, the government made the decision to cut approximately 1.6 thousand ha of vineyards in a number of raions on the whole territory of the republic. These fields will be returned to the agricultural circuit, and afterwards, according to the possibilities of each farm and to the program for the extension of vine and fruit-growing plantations, new sorts will be planted. The program to revive the vineyards and wine-making stipulates that instead of 110 thousand of old vineyards, 100 thousand ha with plantations of highly productive young sorts will by created, using performing technologies. The government also decided an essential increase, as of next year, of the subsidies for the formation of vineyards in order to stimulate the quality production of wine. So, besides the 25 thousand lei for each ha of plantation given in 2006, an extra 15 thousand will be allocated for the founding of plantations of grafted vine and for the creation of a seed bed fund in the RM. Also, 10 thousand lei each will be given out as a supplement for the founding of mass sorts and 5 thousand each will be given out for the creation of plantations of origin wines. In the future, the main vineyard regions of the R. Moldova will be located in the south and center of the republic, where over 90% of the surface of vineyards will be concentrated.