Borjomi mineral water spurned by Russia for 7 years due to alleged sanitary reason, will reappear at Russian market soon because Russian sanitary service found the water in full compliance with sanitary norms after its recent testing.
Borjomi responds to all the state sanitary-epidemiologic norms and is admitted at Russian Market, press-center of IDS Borjomi International, informed Georgian Journal on April 12, 2013 based on statements of Genadi Onishchenko, head of RosPotrebNadzor, a sanitary body of Russian Federation, who said:” Borjomi is registered in the list of products of Russia and admitted at Russian market.”
Now IDS Borjomi International owning the 25-year license on exclusive extraction of Georgian mineral water Borjomi in its portfolio of 12 mineral waters [incorporating Georgian, Russian and Ukrainian mineral waters] is expecting to get a certificate on the state registration on Borjomi to Russia and then Borjomi will be procured to Russia exclusively through IDS Borjomi Russia, a Russian branch of IDS Borjomi International holding famous Russian mineral water brand Svyatoy Istochnik and Edelweiss trade mark products. According to Aleksander Zhdanov, Director General of IDS Borjomi Russia, his company has a well-developed distribution network and plans to implement Borjomi sales through direct contracts.
Borjomi discovered during Russian Tsar reign a century ago has been the most famous and favorite Georgian mineral water in Russia due to its unequal qualities. However it was hurled away in 2006 when Russia imposed an embargo on Georgian agriculture product including wine and mineral water for alleged quality problems. However after 2011 when Georgia gave its consent on Russia’s enrollment to the World Trade Organization (WTO) prohibiting trade barriers among its member-states Borjomi appealed Onishchenko’s office for admittance at Russian market but the latter lingered with the approval up to recently under excuse of some incompliance of technical standards. Meantime Borjomi owns plenty of international quality certificates allowing IDS Borjomi to export the water to 40 countries including EU. The company held details of this refusal reasons closed for public eye but Georgian economic analysts presumed the decisive factor baffling Borjomi to reaper at Russian market was the lack of political will trailing to political tension between Georgia and Russia plus the discrepancy between the Kremlin and the late Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky co-owning IDS Borjomi International together with the also late Georgian tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili. Early in February of 2013 the control package of IDS Borjomi International was handed to Russian-based Alfa-Group, one of the biggest and most influential Russian investment companies imputed in connections with the Kremlin. Georgian economic analysts predicted that now Borjomi will be admitted to Russian market and the forecast came true in two months in fact.
Another Georgian mineral water Nabeglavi that had just started exporting to Russian market before embargo of 2006 is still waiting for new registration at Russian market. According to Avto Svimonishvili, Director General of Healthy Water company producing Nabeglavi, they appealed for registration after the visit of Russian experts in Georgia having inspected technical standards of Georgian wine and water producers willing to hit Russian market in this past March.
“We have already filed the registration at RosPoterbNadzor but lack some paper-work and hope to get the registration by May,” Svimonishvili told GJ.