Russian wine-makers suggest establishing federal regulatory agency

Russian wine-makers consider necessary to establish a federal agency for enology and viticulture, business ombudsman and chairman of the Russian Union of Viticulturists and Wine-Makers Boris Titov told reporters at the Russian Summit of Wine-Makers.

This is necessary in order to consolidate the government regulation of grapes and wine production on a single floor, Titov said.

"If we set a task of consolidating vine and wine regulation, which is needed, <...> there must be a single entity, which will control quality of produced wines with protected geographic indication in the first instance. Secondly, it should have functions to stimulate production, rather than to limit volumes," he said.

The functionality of the Russian wines and spirits regulator Rosalkogolregulirovanie does not comprise the sector development and the new agency can deal exactly deal with this, Titov noted.

Opinion of Agriculture Ministry
The Ministry of Agriculture is familiar with the proposal of wine-makers to create a new federal agency but there is no concerted opinion on this issue so far, deputy department head Asya Marutyan said.

"We certainly discussed all that in general terms, when this project was presented to us. There is no unambiguous decision regarding the need to establish this authority because such regulators as the Ministry of Finance [and] the Ministry of Agriculture are in place for the time being in terms of supporting agricultural producers," Marutyan said.

Interests of the sector and efficiency of state regulation should be assessed when discussing this issue, she added.