​USAID ALLOCATES US$20 THOUSAND GRANT TO COMRAT WINERY

Within a special project on raising competitiveness of Moldovan wines, which is financed by the United States Agency for International Development, the factory “Comrat Wines” received a grant worth US$20 thousand.

Chief operating officer of the enterprise Vladimir Hmelevschi said that the winery added to this grant US$80 thousand more of its own finances for modernizing a number of technological processes in producing high quality wines.

“Special refrigerating equipment, which will allow stopping the wine fermentation by means of cold, as well as modern filters, will help considerably improving the wine quality”, he said, adding that the winery has already purchased new containers for wine storing.

On Tuesday, November 15, the enterprise was visited by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USA to Moldova James D. Pettit and USAID Moldova head Karen Hilliard.

Manager of the USAID Competitiveness Enhancement and Enterprise Development Project (CEED-II) Diana Lazar said that the consultant in this season has worked at the plant, helping handling the new equipment.

“The modern equipment is designed for producing quality wines, which will be competitive on new markets”, Lazar said.

Karen Hilliard pointed at the fact that the main goal of USAID financial assistance is to overcome consequences of wine embargo, introduced by Russia against Moldova.

“We hope that the implementation of new technologies will allow manufacturing a product that will be able to compete in European and Asian markets. The wine industry provides jobs to nearly 200 thousand people in Moldova. Several hundreds of people are working on this enterprise. We are helping the branch as it is a part of Moldovan culture”, Hilliard said.