On August 3, the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting devoted to issues of expansion of vineyards and development of winemaking, increasing production and export of wine industry products.
In accordance with the resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On measures for fundamental improvement of wine industry and sale of alcohol products” of February 28 this year, the “Uzsharobsanoat” Joint Stock Company was reorganized, its new organizational structure was approved, and management was updated. A number of tasks have been identified for expanding the vineyards and development of winemaking.
The analysis of the state of the industry shows that there is practically no growth in it. So, in the first half of this year, 62 production entities of the industry produced wine and alcoholic products worth 951 billion sums, which is 1 percent of the total volume of industrial output produced in the country. During this period, industrial production in the country grew by 11 percent, and growth in this industry amounted only 0.9 percent.
The level of loading capacities on manufacture of vodka, wine, alcohol, champagne has decreased. Indicators of the first half of this year are much lower than the same period of 2017. The forecasts for production of vodka and wine have not been fulfilled. To address this problem, industry leaders should separately examine the activities of plants that have allowed a significant reduction in the level of capacity utilization and take appropriate measures. Before, there were cases when factories of the industry used the bulk of their capacities for “shadow” production. Henceforth, it is necessary to prevent the occurrence of this phenomenon, known as the “second line”.
In production attention is not paid to the balance of product varieties. Over the past ten years, the production of wine from grapes has decreased by 2.5-3 times compared to liquor and vodka products. This is explained by the fact that primary wine-making enterprises, with capacities for processing 200 thousand tons of grapes and harvesting 14 million decalitres of wine materials, use only 15 percent of their capacities because of a shortage of raw materials. Only 25 percent of enterprises that produce wine materials have been modernized, while the rest still use equipment installed in the 1990s. As a result, 25 enterprises capable of producing nearly 4 million decalitres of bottled wine are loaded only by 57 percent.
Among the main reasons – a sharp reduction in the area of vineyards of wine varieties and a decrease in their yields. There are 73 thousand hectares of vineyards in the country, wine grape varieties are cultivated on 10 thousand hectares, including 4.3 thousand hectares of vineyards belong to the enterprises of “Uzsharobsanoat” JSC. This amount does not cover production needs. In this regard, in February of this year, “Uzsharobsanoat” enterprises were tasked to increase the area of vineyards of wine varieties to 10 thousand hectares by 2021.
