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Increasing the excise tax on wines imported into Russian will leave a negative impact on the exports of the Armenian wines to the country, Avag Harutyunyan, Chairman of the Union of Armenian Winemakers said in an interview with Panorama.am.

“The Russian excise tax screws everything up. We have talked to the Russian importers, who noted they are going to oppose the decision, attempting to delay its implementation,” Harutyunyan said, briefing on the results of the talks with the Russian partners.

The Russian companies have previously taken steps, which ended up in a failure. As the assessments of the Union show, the Armenian wine exports volume will cut down by 15-20 percent, which will however be compensated due to the increase expected in November-December.

As Harutyunyan noted, no deal or agreement reached with the Armenian wineries are not cancelled as of now, adding that the new decision will cause more harm to the Russian consumers as the wine prices will increase.

In the charman’s words, in 2016 the exports volume of the Armenian wine to Russian was 30% more that the one in 2015. Mr. Harutyunyan expects that this year Armenia will see up to 50% increase in wine exports to Russian to compare with 2016.

“The quality of the Armenian wine has further improved; the [wine production] market involves highly serious and ambitious producers. Currently the Armenian wine is the best in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet territory,” he noted.

The director added that although the wine exports volume of neighbouring Georgia is ten times more than the one of Armenia, the Armenian wine has a better quality.

To note, Russia’s Ministry of Finance has adopted a decision, according to which the excise tax on sparkling wine rose to 14 rubles per liter, instead of the former 13 rubles. The duty increased by 18-36 rubles in case of the other types of wines. This aroused outrage among the Russian wine importing companies, which have announced that 80 percent of the companies will be forced to leave the market amid this situation.