The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry of Moldova hasn’t yet received an answer from Russia’s food safety body “Rospotrebnadzor” as regards the resumption of exports of Moldova wines. The Moldovan authorities continue to send letters to Russia, providing explanations over the objections invoked to the quality of the Moldovan wines, Minister of Agriculture Vasile Bumacov said in the program “Replica” on Prime TV channel, IPN reports.

The minister said that during the last visit to Moscow, specialists of the Ministry of Agriculture discussed with Russian experts who visited Moldova to check the quality of wines for over two hours. They used up all the arguments in favor of resuming wine exports to Russia, but the Russian side continues to raise new objections. Russia imposes two times more conditions for the export of wines than the European Union.

Vasile Bumacov stated that the Moldovan wines made in industrial conditions are of a high quality. The ban imposed on the imports of Moldovan wines affects the Russian consumers. The Moldovan wines were exported to Russia by discriminatory systems. This made the export of wines of a high quality difficult, while the wines that reached the Russian market were counterfeit namely because of the imposed conditions. The minister underlined that every month of embargo causes losses of US$3.5 million to the national producers.

“The wine of a poor quality reaches Russia by other ways, owing to the imposed interdiction. We have worked for the Russian market for over 60 years, while in the Soviet period 70% of the consumed wines were made in Moldova. It would be thus a crime to abandon the Eastern market after making so many investments,” said Vasile Bumacov.

He added that Moldova will continue to promote the national wines on the EU market, while the ban imposed by Russia on the imports of Moldovan wines was a big present for the opponents from Moldova.