The BiH Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, representatives of the entity ministries and winemakers from the Republic of Srpska and the Federation of BiH should soon jointly define measures to protect domestic producers. This was concluded at the meeting of the representatives of the group of winemakers at the Foreign Trade Chamber of BiH, with Minister Stasa Košarac, in Trebinje. It was also concluded that it is necessary to work on increasing quotas for wine exports.
The measures that will be adopted will be transparent while respecting all international agreements and treaties. Increased engagement of entity sanitary inspections is also needed, in order to prevent the import of grapes and wines of dubious quality, from countries that encourage the export of these products.
– The most important thing would be to strengthen border control and not to import garbage into our country, so far wood has been better controlled than wine and grapes – emphasizes Miro Ćorić, a member of the “Andrija” Čitluk Winery Group.
Due to the pandemic, domestic producers sold only symbolic quantities of wine. Winemakers and winegrowers have called for interim measures to protect domestic production.
– We asked for temporary measures, the group believes that it would mean a lot to domestic producers, I don’t know how much it will be done to protect our market – said Radovan Vukoje, a member of the Vukoje Winery Group.
In addition to the protection of domestic producers, international treaties and agreements should be respected. With about 3,600 hectares of vineyards in BiH, about thirty million kilograms of grapes are produced annually, of which 65 percent is processed into wine.
– It speaks enough about the quantities we have, and if we see that the BiH market is free for imports from CEFT and EU countries, it tells us that, as a consequence of Kovid, we seriously approach protective measures in the field of agriculture, especially Article 23 of the CEFTA agreement – he said Stasa Košarac, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations in the Council of Ministers of BiH.
Košarac said that a procedure for increasing quotas for wine exports and a procedure for drafting a law on wine at the BiH level would be launched soon. Priority safeguards should be defined in seven days.
TST
