Baku, Azerbaijan, September 17
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
The Georgian National Wine Agency will spend about 9 million lari on marketing activities in 2020, said Levan Mehuzla, chairman of the National Wine Agency, Trend reports referring to the Agency.
He noted that compared with the current year, the Agency’s marketing budget will increase by almost 1.5 million lari.
“We work with partner countries, but more attention is likely to be paid to the countries of Northern Europe, where marketing activities have so far been very sporadic. We will also work strategically with Germany,” Mehuzla said.
Last month, Mehuzla announced that in the first seven months of 2019, Georgian wine exports to the US increased by 60 percent and to Russia by only 2 percent. However, about 60 percent of Georgian wine is usually exported to Russia.
According to him, in the next 3-4 years, an average of 4-5 million bottles of wine will be exported to the US market, which will be an important step forward to replace traditional markets.
“We strive for double-digit growth in the US, Southeast Asia and Europe. So far, wine exports to the US have increased by 60 percent, and I hope that at the end of the year we will finish with an increase of 50 percent,” he said.
Over the past seven months of 2019, 47.2 million bottles of wine were exported to 47 countries, which is 4 percent more than in the same period in 2018. Revenues from wine exports amounted to $114.2 million, which is 6 percent more than last year.
In 2018, Georgia exported about 86.2 million bottles of wine to 53 countries, a record for the past 30 years. Last year, Georgia received $203 million from the sale of wine abroad.
Revenues have increased by 20 percent since 2017, and exports increased by 13 percent, according to the Georgian National Wine Agency.
(1 USD = 2.96 GEL on September 17)