President Voronin claims lobby in selection of wine exporting companies

President Vladimir Voronin is displeased with the delay in the process concerning the resumption of wine exports to the Russian market, and considers as unacceptable the lobby in the selection of the exporting companies. The head of state made this statement at a meeting on the issue of exports and imports of alcoholic products. According to a press release from the Presidency, Voronin requested persons in charge to ensure the high quality of the exported local wines and alcoholic products, as well as strict observance of the conditions settled in the field of wine exports and imports of alcoholic beverages via the “Single Desk”. The Agro-industrial Agency “Moldova-Vin” is the only institution that has the right to issue the commercial brand of Moldova and the quality certificates when accepting the wine production on the internal market. The Russian press recently reported that the talks which took place between the Russian and Moldovan experts in Moscow in mid January did not conclude with the decision to resume the exports of Moldovan wines to Russia. The bilateral consultations are to continue in the near future. Russia’s chief-sanitary doctor Ghenadi Oniscenko said he will send experts in Moldova to make a “civilised” assessment. He said that the Moldovan party took into consideration the requests and has intensified the internal control over the quality of wine products. According to the Russian newspapers, the acceptance of the wine exports to the Russian market will be a hard mission to accomplish both for producers and consumers, because the “Moldovan” part of the market was already replaced. Thus, the Moldovan producers will have to come with wines of irreproachable quality and use “dumping” prices in order to come back on the Russian market. Certain companies on the Russian market continue to be reserved about the Moldovan wine production because they do not have any guarantees that its quality will be satisfactory.