Russia's leading hygiene inspector said Thursday that he was banning sales of the popular Georgian sparkling water because of numerous documentation problems, which made it difficult to tell genuine Borjomi from illicit copies. The move came only six weeks after a ban on Georgian wine imports, citing health safety reasons.
"Russia's decision shows that it is waging a real trade war against Georgia," Mikhail Svimonishvili said.
Wine and mineral water are two of the South Caucasus republic's biggest exports and the March ban on wine increased tension in already strained relations between Moscow and Tbilisi.
The Borjomi company said it had learnt about the ban from news reports, and added it had received no official notification from Moscow.
Russia's chief doctor Gennady Onishchenko said the decision to ban Borjomi had been prompted by lab tests of the water on sale and checks that had exposed 191 Borjomi bottles without documents needed to reflect the quality and safety of the product.
"Checks that uncovered batches of mineral water Borjomi without proper documents gave me grounds for ordering the customs service to ban imports of this mineral water into Russia," Onishchenko said Thursday.
Borjomi is unique salty water from mineral springs in Georgian mountains, which its producers say is good for people with liver, kidney and digestion problems. The company controls about 10% of the Russian mineral water market.
Onishchenko said all the official documents allowing Borjomi sales in Russia had been withdrawn and that the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare would investigate how bottles bearing the Borjomi brand had appeared in Russia.
He also said he had asked Borjomi producers to provide extensive information about the fake Borjomi bottles discovered in Moscow.
"I had hoped the situation with [Georgian] wine would not be repeated, as it is a more civilized market, but the producers' inertia forced me to give up these hopes," he said.
