OREANDA-NEWS. April 03, 2012. Moldova hopes to export more wines to Russia when additional customs terminals to clear alcohols from Moldova will be opened. The minister of agriculture and food industry of Moldova said this in his interview to Radio Free Europe. Moldovan wines are still very popular in Europe, but Moldova is facing problems to export them and palace on markets, the minister noted.

According to him, Moldova is the only country which supplies its wines and brandies to Russia in a single-window regime, which creates certain problems. At present only two customs terminals are clearing Moldovan wines. If a producer is going to deliver its wines to the region of Krasnodar, it has first to deliver them in Moscow and pass through all test quality procedures and clear wines through the customs terminal in the single-widow regime. After this, wines can be dispatched to Krasnodar. Such a procedure doubles the distance and transportation costs. Under current conditions of tough competition every cent matters, Vasile Bumacov has said.

Opening new terminals in Russia will allow Moldova wine-makers to reduce expenses and increase wines exports and their presence of markets. Russian consumers will also contribute from this situation as they will be able to buy qualitative wines at lower prices. Vasile Bumacov cited Gennady Onishchenko, head of Rospotebnadzor, who said that Moldova exerted significant efforts to improve quality of its wines delivered to RF. Majority of Moldovan suppliers whose wines did not meet the quality requirements left the Russian market.

As Gennady Onishchenko noted, only 37 winemakers have stayed on the market of 120 exporting wines to Russia before the ban. At the same time, the ban on deliveries of Moldovan wines affected Russian participants of the wine market too. Losses of distributors and Russian owners of Moldova wineries amounted to \\$300 mln. approximately in the first year of the ban.