Russia banned Moldovan wine imports last March, saying the wine contained heavy metals, pesticides, and caused health concerns.
"The Russian ban on Moldovan wines has brought many wine-making enterprises to the brink of bankruptcy, and some owners have already announced plans to sell up," Sergei Borets, director general of Acorex Wine Holding, one of the leading companies in the country, told a business forum in the capital, Chisinau.
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised in November to reverse the ban if Moldova introduced a proper quality control system. But Moldovan forum participants said the lack of concrete prospects was only aggravating the situation and causing a labor exodus from the sector.
"Winemakers have been left to their own devices, and even banks that have profited from vineyards are freezing all relations with them," Borets said, adding that his company alone had paid more than $13 million of debt on bank loans from 1998.
"In the current crisis situation, which was caused by politics rather than management policy, nobody has offered us a helping hand," Borets said.
Forum participants agreed that attempts to make up for losses from the Russian ban by increasing domestic sales had proved almost futile.
Moldova has been energetically looking to repair its reputation as a wine exporter and win back the confidence of Russian customers.
In January, Moldova said it had launched a rigorous quality control and certification system for wines and liquors sold both domestically and abroad.
In mid-February, Moldova's Agriculture and Food Minister Stefan Calancea said Russian and Moldovan experts were developing a mechanism for resuming wine imports via a single customs checkpoint. He said the state would also inspect all wine producers after the sides agreed on import resumption.
"A special laboratory has been set up in Moldova to check wine quality," he said, adding that each consignment would be closely inspected before being allowed to cross the border.
Relations between the two former Soviet republics, Russia and Moldova, have been complicated since the collapse of the Soviet Union, stumbling over Moldova's westward ambitions and its breakaway region of Transdnestr dominated by Russian speakers.
