Russian perfume producers have called on the government to scrap a requirement for their goods to be classed the same way as alcoholic drinks, which has brought two-thirds of Russian producers to a standstill, Vedomosti business paper reported on Wednesday.

“As of February 1, 2012, the majority of officially operating perfume producers accounting for over 65-70 percent of the domestic perfume market stood idle without licenses,” a non-commercial perfume industry lobby group said in a letter addressed to the government.

Most perfume producers are standing idle because they failed to renew their alcohol production licenses, which expired in 2011. Perfume producers have sustained over 1 billion rubles ($32 million) in direct and indirect losses due to lost production, the group said.

Perfume makers want to replace the existing alcohol licenses with state certificates. From 2007, the Russian government required perfume producers to obtain licenses for alcohol production, storage and sale.

The Federal Agency for Alcohol Market Regulation has objected to the perfume makers' request to return to the previous system of state certification of their products.

“If an organization deals with the production, storage and delivery of ethyl alcohol and alcohol-content liquids (including in the perfumery sector), a license is necessary and this is required by law,” the regulator said, adding that perfume producers were denied new licenses for objective reasons for their failure to comply with statutory requirements.