An official of the Union of wineries of Russia claims that Moldovan wines have a chance to get back on the Russian market

The Russian press, quoted by Info-Prim Neo, wrote that the Vice-president of the Russian Union of wineries, Aleksandr Brajko, claims that the Moldovan producers have chances to restart deliveries of wines to the Russian Federation, despite the firm declarations of the main state sanitary medic, according to which “it is highly unlikely that Moldovan wines will get back to the Russian market”. „Nobody claimed that Moldovan wines are of poor quality, - declared Brajko, - but investigations undertaken by „Rospotrebnadzor” confirmed that low quality products were imported to the Russian market from the Republic of Moldova. If the Moldovan side will respect the Russian legislation, and the „Rospotrebnadzor” control will confirm it, Moldovan wines will reappear in Russian markets”, the Russian official declared. Otherwise the free place on the Russian market formed by the embargo on Moldovan table wines could be quickly taken by Russian or foreign producers. According to Brajko, the increase in table wines sales could be supplied by countries that already have a commercial relation with the Russian Federation, like Argentina, Chile, and Spain. The producers from Bulgaria could also increase export to the Russian market. The Russian local producers will also continue to increase the supply of cheap and medium price wines. In the last months the big wine companies have doubled or tripled their production volume, Brajko claims. Vice-president of the Russian Union of wineries claims that table wines could increase in price by 5-10%, as there is a great demand for these wines. Previously, the main state sanitary medic of the Russian Federation, Genadi Oniscenko, appreciated as “highly unlikely” the comeback of Moldovan wines to the Russian market. According to him, the matter of resuming wine supplies to the Russian market has been highly politicized by the Moldovan authorities, and, as a result, the negotiations have reached a dead-end. „This demonstrates that the Moldovan side does not recognize the fact that their wines don’t meet the norms, and therefore doesn’t want to arrange the production process. All these lead to the thought that the Moldovan wine, basically, has no way back to the Russian market”, Oniscenko stated. The official also underlined that, “considering the politicization of the issue”, the „Rospotrebnadzor” delegation „will most likely give up the planned negotiations trip to the Republic of Moldova”. From March 27 2006, the Russian Federation had forbid the import of wines from the Republic of Moldova and Georgia, claiming that the wines contain heavy metals and pesticides. Moldovan wine producers ignore these accusations and claim the issue has political character. Until now, the losses of the Moldovan wine producers from the Russian embargo are evaluated at USD 120 million.