OREANDA-NEWS. October 24, 2011. Moldova shipped 17.2 million litres of alcoholic beverages in January-September 2011, according to a press release issued by the Russian Federal Service for Consumer Rights Protection Rospotrebnadzor.

According to the Moscow-based Centre of Hygiene and Epidemiology, 2,835 consignments of wine, 149 consignments of bulk wine and 353 consignments of brandy were subjected to laboratory tests in 2011.

Rospotrebnadzor has also announced that only 39 out of 44 Moldovan enterprises producing alcoholic beverages had submitted their samples for testing.

The Russian authorities are now considering a possibility of granting access to the Russian market to three Moldovan companies willing to export bulk alcoholic beverages.

Yet, Rospotrebnadzor noted that the amount of smuggled alcoholic production coming from Belarus and counterfeited in Moldova and Georgia is increasing. The Russian sanitary service warned that drastic measures would be taken to foil smuggling cases.

The Rospotrebnadzor press release said nothing about Moldovan consignments of alcoholic beverages that do not meet the quality standards in 2011.

Last week, the head of the service, Gennady Onishchenko, said that Rospotrebnadzor has objections to the quality of the Transnistrian cognac (Kvint), adding that the import of Kvint might be banned in the near future.