ArmInfo. Armenia is not accepted seriously in international wine processing community, Seriously accepted are those who carry on active export policy, Avag Harutyunyan, the Head of Armenian Winemakers union, expressed his opinion referring to the export- oriented activities of Georgia. "We always face Georgian wall, in every market we enter by our own means. Georgia spends ten times more for the implementation of their export policy,' he accentuated. According to his words, Georgian export expenses form about USD 100.000, while Armenia spends ten times less, marketing expenses of the neighbor country stand at the range from USD 1 mln to 3 mln, and the same for Armenia is just USD 50 000.
According to the expert, another, additional negative factor for the sector is the Diaspora, which cuts any motivation of vendors. "Diaspora purchases Armenian wine, being ruled just and only by ideas of that being "Armenian", denying the quality, price and other indicators. In this respect Harutyunyan considers expedient to pass to Diaspora the role of the official ambassador of Armenian wine, just like Georgia did to reach today results.
Answering the question of ArmInfo, Harutyunyan stated that every year from 6 mln liters produced in Armenia, the volume of 2 mln liters is exported, 85% of which - to the CIS market (where the 90% of the last figure is the share of the Russian market, which recently turned not very profitable for us), 5-6% is going to Georgian market, and 1-2% to EU, USA, Baltic countries, China. According to the expert, working only for the Chinese market, Armenia could solve all the problems with the wine export. " The Chinese market is very effective and our our neighbors have already concluded the agreement on free wine trade, which could not be done by us. Due to the membership in EEU Armenia has no right to conclude trade agreements as a separate subject, such agreements could be signed in EEU-China format, which requires pretty long time," Harutyunyan accentuated.
According to Armenian Customs Committee, in the first half of 2016 Armenia exported 780 000 liters wine, with year over year growth for 25%. For the year of 2015 the wine export decreased for 29% down to 1.5 mln litres versus 50% growth for the same period a year earlier.