OREANDA-NEWS. September 16, 2014. The production of technical sorts of grapes this year is expected to total 300,000 tonnes. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry proposed distilling 100,000 tonnes of technical sorts of grapes and purchasing the finished products for the state reserve.

"We estimated that the wine companies will have about 100,000 tonnes of own raw material. Another 100,000 tonnes will be bought from the producers and we suggested that the other 100,000 tonnes should be distilled and purchased for the state reserve," division head at the Ministry Valeriu Cebotari has told IPN.

He said that a part of the technical sorts of grapes will be consumed fresh. Earlier, these grapes were exported fresh to Belarus and Ukraine. Now there are exported mainly table grapes, to Belarus, Russia, the EU and less to Ukraine, owing to the tense situation in this country. Preliminary data show that about 3,000 tonnes of table grapes were exported in August.

After Russia banned the import of Moldovan wine in 2013, the price of a kilogram of technical sorts of grapes fell from 4.5 to 3 lei.