Thursday, October 3 2019 17:20

ArmInfo.The 11th annual wine festival in Areni village will be held this year on October 5. The director of the festival Nune Manukyan stated this on October 3 at a  press conference. It is worth noting that this is the fourth wine  festival in Armenia, which is held this year.  ACBA-Credit Agricole  Bank is traditionally the general sponsor of the Wine Festival in  Areni.

According to Manukyan, about 20 winemakers will take part in the  festival, the majority of which will be represented by domestic  wineries. As in previous years over 100 pavilions of participants are  expected.  Among the producers, she said, this year 3 new winemakers  will take part in the festival, who will have the opportunity to  present their products and bring them to the market.

The first part of the festival will be accompanied by folk music,  followed by an evening full of performances by pop stars.

In addition, Manukyan emphasized that due to increased competition in  the wine market, today winemakers pay special attention to product  quality, which is welcome.

Answering the question of ArmInfo correspondent, she noted that from  year to year the number of visitors to the festival is growing  dynamically. In particular, a similar trend is observed due to the  interest from international tour operators who get in touch in order  to include the festival in Areni in tour packages for citizens of  their countries. Manukyan noted that Russian tour operators are most  interested in the festival, followed by tour operators from Malaysia,  the Philippines and Australia.

In turn, the head of the Areni community Gevorg Simonyan emphasized  that this year winemakers from all 9 settlements that were part of  the larger Areni community will take part in the festival. He also  emphasized that thanks to the festival, the hotel industry is  actively developing in the community, restaurants are opened, and  winemaking is developing. "Annually, about 50 thousand tourists come  to Areni, and the Areni wine festival, which contributed to  increasing the recognition of our region, unconditionally plays a  role in this," he said.

Answering ArmInfo's question, Artyom Ghazaryan, Head of Marketing  Communications Department at ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank, noted that  the dynamic development of winemaking in Armenia in recent years is  also reflected in the structure of the Bank's loan portfolio for  agriculture, where the share of winemakers is growing rapidly.

Recently, he said, in general, in agriculture there has been a  tendency to transform households into farms.  ''This is encouraging,  since it means that people want to develop a business, and this leads  to an increase in the quality component. I should note that the Bank  has a serious contribution to the development of the above'',  he  stressed.

In this vein, Ghazaryan noted that the Bank implements numerous  programs for the development of agriculture, in particular, carries  out certification of organic agricultural production, which provides  farmers with the opportunity to export their products to European  markets. Moreover, ACBA-Credit Agricole also provides non-financial  services. Continuing what was said, he noted that the Bank is  initiating seminars, in particular for the development of the travel  industry in the regions of Armenia and for improving the quality of  services in this area. ''We have already held seminars in several  areas, presenting the programs developed by our international  partners. I must note that the results are impressive'', concluded  the representative of the Bank.

It should be noted that according to the Statistical Committee of the  Republic of Armenia, in January-July 2019 the volume of wine produced  in Armenia accelerated the y-o-y growth rate from 0.8% to 37.8%,  amounting to 6.4 million liters. At the same time, according to the  RA Customs Service, in the first half of 2019, Armenia exported 1.3  million liters of wine, with y-o-y growth of 16.5%, with a decrease  in customs value by 1.5% to $ 4.3 million. Traditionally, the main  export market for Armenian wine is the Russian Federation (72.3%),  followed by China (5%), Switzerland (4%), USA (3.4%), Poland (2%),  France (1.8%), Italy (1.5%), Ukraine (1.2%), Georgia (1%) .