Specialists consider that the subsidies in winemaking and winegrowing should be provided to the exporting producers, not to other categories of producers as it is done at present, Info-Prim Neo reports. Nicolae Taran, the vice director general of Moldova-Vin Agency, said that the subsidies for planting vine are allocated form the revitalization fund. But this fund, unlike the agriculture subsidization fund, is not formed from state budget allocations, but from the export duties paid by wine companies. The current subsidization method discourages the exporters and should be modified. Nicolae Taran said that last year the export duties paid by the companies made up 80% of the revitalization fund. Now that the exports of wine products have dropped by over 30%, the given taxes constitute only 50% of the fund. The structure of the subsidies provided from this fund was also modified. Such large wine companies as Bostovan, Purcari, Lion Gri, Vinaria din Vale received earlier 70% of the subsidies. Now, about 80% of them are provided to small farmers and peasant farmsteads. The large companies practically stopped planning vine, while the farmers plant mainly table sorts of grapes. “It is good that the small farms grow highly productive sorts of grapes, but the production levels should be reasonable as the table sorts of grapes could remain out of demand in 4-5 years. Besides, the large companies do not like that they must pay taxes into the revitalization fund, but the subsidies are granted to small growers who plant new table grape sorts, not technical sorts for the wine industry,” Taran said. According to him, the subsidies of 25,000 lei provided for planting a hectare of land with technical grape sorts and of 40,000 lei for a hectare planted with table grapes cover only one fifth of the costs incurred until the vine starts to produce grapes. There are many cases when the vineyards are abandoned in 2-3 years owing to the lack of funding. “Given such a situation, Moldova-Vin Agency proposed amending the law on wine and vine and increasing the subsidies so that they cover the costs incurred until grapes are produced. There will be needed about 100,000 lei per hectare. This money could be collected if the revitalization fund is not formed only from the taxes paid by the wine exporters, but also from the taxes paid by the economic entities that produce and sell alcoholic beverages, including beer, spirits, liquors. Many countries use such practices. In Ukraine for example, all the economic entities that produce and sell alcoholic drinks pay 1% of the yearly turnover into this fund,” Taran said. The vice director of Moldova-Vin also spoke about another problem that is as important to his mind. “We now grant subsidies to all the economic entities that provide documents showing that they planted a certain number of hectares with vine and that minimum 90% of the cuttings took root. We drafted a strategy for setting up modern vineyards according to the market requirements.” Taran said that there is a wide discrepancy between the demand and supply in the area. “The table sort “Moldova” makes up 70% of the total sorts, but it is not in great demand on the market. The areas with national technical sorts of grapes are small. We hope the new Parliament will adopt this strategy that would enable to grow technical sorts of grape and to produce specific wine with names of origin, which are in demand on the world markets. The creation of such vineyards must be subsidized.”