Situation of winemakers is very difficult, Moldova-Vin official

A series of unfavorable conditions for winegrowers and winemakers appeared at the start of the new winemaking season, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting Nicolae Taran, the deputy director general of Moldova-Vin Agency. Taran said that the winemaking companies have 20 million decaliters (200 million liters) of wine made during 2008-2009 in stock. Their debts to the grape growers for the previous years total 90–95 million lei. The export of nonbottled Moldovan wine to Russia was not resumed, as Russian officials and the Moldovan authorities promised. The announcement that the Russian market will absorb about 2-3 million decaliters of Moldovan wine before the new season did not come true as only 50,000 decaliters of nonbottled wine have been exported so far, like the previous year. This is an insignificant figure as the possibilities are much greater. “About 350,000 tonnes of grapes are expected to be harvested this year, by 100,000 tonnes more than the previous year. Besides, the grapes contain 20-22% of saccharine and this is very good. But the wine companies do not have money to purchase grapes. In addition to the debts to the suppliers of grapes, they have to repay loans of 1.3 billion lei to banks. Therefore, the prices of grapes this year is very low – from 1 leu to 2.6 lei per kilogram of white grapes and from 3 lei to 3.2 lei per kilogram of red grapes. But there are a few buyers. The large companies have their own vineyards that occupy 800-1,000 hectares and will process only these grapes. The grape growers will again remain with their production unsold,” Nicolae Taran said. It is anticipated that the winemaking companies will be able to purchase only 200,000-220,000 tonnes of grapes, while the other 130,000-150,000 tonnes will remain out of demand. Taran considers that the only solution to the problem is to remove all the barriers to the export of agricultural products, including grapes. 25,000 tonnes of grapes have been exported to Ukraine. The Ukrainian processors still need a certain volume of raw material. Only 5,000 tonnes have been sold to Romania. New markets should be identified as about 60,000-70,000 tonnes of grapes will remain unsold even if the demands of the two countries are fully satisfied.