Union of Alcohol Market Participants suggested setting up a uniform body to control the industry and blamed the wine and spirits crisis on the lack of coordination of authorities.
Photo: Nikolay Cyiganov
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Accountable for Alcohol Crisis to Be Set Up from Scratch
The Union of Alcohol Market Participants suggested setting up a uniform body to control the industry, as the wine and spirits crisis in Russia broke on poor coordination of the state bodies.
The highlight of the Friday meeting hosted by the RF Ministry of Agriculture was the wine and spirits crisis in the country and creation of a new state body, which name will probably be the Federal Agency on Alcohol Market Control.
“It must be an authorized federal body committed to coordinate legislative and actual activities of the industry,” said Osman Paragulkov, chief of the Union of Alcohol Market Participants. “As it became clear that no one is responsible for the alcohol crisis, it will be the best way out.”
In general, the market players blame crisis on the lack of coordinating effort of three of six ministries that supervise the market – Finance Ministry, Economic Development and Trade Ministry and Ministry of Agriculture.
In Russia, the wine and spirits crisis was unleashed on January 1, 2006, once the new Act on Alcohol Product and Sales took effect. From that day on, all alcohol makers and importers (wholesalers joined the desperate league July 1) are to submit data to the federal control system called the United State Automated System, which doesn’t properly operate even now.
The system failure first brought to a standstill the distilleries, while the imported wine and spirits with old excise stamps were withdrawn some time later. The wholesale was paralyzed in July. At present, the overall losses of the industry, which annual turnover stands at $20 billion, are estimated at $230 million.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 28, 2006
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