Avag Harutyunyan, Chairman of Union of Winemakers of Armenia (UWA), in the conversation with Aravot.am, listing achievements of the year 2013, singled out the following: “The year was successful for several reasons, first the good climatic conditions, mainly the trees did not suffer from frost and diseases, the harvest did not suffer from hail, and we received good harvest both in quantity and quality. The second peculiarity was the growth in the quantity of Armenian wine exports, i.e. by the scale of 11 months, we had a 70 percent export growth. The third peculiarity was that for the first time the government sponsored us to participate in 2 exhibitions and one tasting in Moscow within the days of Yerevan.” Avag Harutyunyan added that this year they have received a gold medal in the European tasting contest, a fact, which was of particular importance and a great indicator. As said by Avag Harutyunyan, there was a decrease of 10% in passing year 2013 with regard to brandy, however, 10% increase was recorded with regard to the value in the past 11 months.
Avag Harutyunyan notes, “The year was bad that people started to drink local products 10 percent less than foreign drinks. Every year, when one was going down, the other was going up, but as far as the volume of imports were roughly the same, it turned out that life has deteriorated, or migration increased, therefore the consumption of Armenian produce in domestic market was so low. The year was bad, because the government did do anything for supermarkets and large stores to return the money within a reasonable period of time, and that the criminal credit system goes down a little.” Despite the said problems, Avag Harutyunyan assured that during the year 2013 there would be more positive because, first, the wineries and vineyards grew in number, and the price for grapes increased.
Eva HAKOBYAN
