SELIGER (Tver Region), August 24 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia may establish a large state corporation to produce wine materials on domestic soil as part of the country’s import substitution effort, Russian business ombudsman Boris Titov said on Sunday.
The proposal is part of a strategy to develop the Crimean wine-making industry, which will be submitted to the Russian government by September.
“We have proposed to establish a large corporation, which will be state-owned at the first stage, which would produce wine materials rather than operate on the wine brand market,” Titov said.
Most Russian winemakers have to buy the larger part of wine materials from Spain, Chile and Italy to produce sparkling wines, the business ombudsman said.
“Russian vineyards’ supplies currently cannot cover even a tenth of what is produced in Russia. That is why, we have proposed to establish a state corporation for the purpose of import substitution,” Titov said.
A state wine corporation could both produce wine materials and provide other services to the private sector. In particular, it could be used to create a pool of machinery and equipment for vineyard treatment and logistics centers to dispatch output to other regions, the ombudsman said.
In July, Russia set up a special working group headed by Titov to study the prospects of developing vineyards and wine-making in Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.
In early August, the group submitted the first part of its strategy to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, describing the prospects of developing wine-making in Crimea based on state ownership. The deputy premier set the task to prepare a strategy for the development of the entire Crimean wine-making industry irrespective of the forms of ownership and submit it to the government by September 1.