ArmInfo. Consumption of Armenian wine grew by 30% in numerical terms in 2016, Head of the Winemakers' Union of Armenia Avag Harutyunyan said at a press conference on January 12 noting that this dynamics has been registered for 7 years already.
''In 2011 Armenia held 3-5 place in the world by consumption of vodka. Today, Armenians prefer wine of local production. Segment of our wine is gradually growing on the local market'', he stressed.
According to the expert the current trend is first of all caused by reduction of economic activity, which influenced on drop of consumption of imported wines, secondly, increasing trust of consumers of the national product, particularly they started to buy wine costing $5- 6 having no doubts about its quality, which led to reduction of imports.
''Since 2013 share of imported wines dropped on the Armenian market to 200 thsd bottles in average versus 500 thsd bottles in 2003-2004'', he noted. At the same time Harutyunyan informed that Georgian wine comprises only 5 thsd of the above-mentioned 200thsd bottles of imported wine. ''However, the share of Georgian wine is sharply growing in other markets'', he stressed.
According to the Armenian Customs Service, in the first half of 2016, Armenia exported 780 thsd liters of wine (up 25% versus H1 2015). Throughout 2015, wine exports dropped by 29% to 1.5 mln liters versus 50% rise a year before. In Jan-Nov 2016, the wine output totaled 5.8 mln liters (up 15.6% versus Jan-Nov 2015 and down 2.1% versus Jan-Nov 2014).