President Saakashvili said on April 3 that the situation surrounding Russia’s ban on the import of Georgian wine is “very problematic” and described Russia’s decision as “an economic embargo” against Georgia. 

Russia’s chief sanitary department stopped issuing “sanitary-epidemiological conclusions” for Georgian and Moldovan wines on March 27.

“The decision which has been made at the technical level [by the chief Russian sanitary inspector] is much a more serious issue than just a technical misunderstanding. So our major task now is to hold top-level consultations at the level of Ministries with the Russian political leadership and not simply with the technical structures [of Russia],” Saakashvili said while meeting with government members.

“I am really surprised with those people in Georgia who dishonestly started talking like the Georgian authorities are to blame for this [ban by Russia]… The Georgian authorities have eradicated the falsification [of wine], the Georgian authorities [fostered] a two-fold increase in  Georgian wine on the world markets and the Georgian authorities gave all opportunities to Georgian winemakers to gain access to new markets. The Georgian government is being punished for the fact that Georgia has an efficient government. We will spare no efforts to foil the plans of those [people] who think that it will be possible to choke us with this [ban],” Saakashvili said.

He instructed the government and regional governors to spare no efforts in ensuring an unhindered grape harvest this autumn.

“Starting from next week we should send delegations to all those countries which can serve as potential markets [for Georgian wine]. I am planning a visit to China and I intend to talk about this issue there… We should work much better in this regard with the Baltic States, with Ukraine,” Saakashvili said.

He said that this decision by Russia should foster an efforts by Georgia to diversify its foreign trade. “Through this [decision by Russia] we have a chance to become much stronger,” the Georgian President added.