‘We are going to resume production within the next few days’, Lyubov Slepukhina, Production Manager of Yuzhno-Uralsky Spirtovo-Vodochny Zavod Ltd. (vodka distillery of Southern Urals located in the town of Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Region) said to UrBC representative.

In January 2006, Russian spirituous liquors producers, unable to acquire new federal excise duty stamps, had to suspense their operations.

‘At the moment, our vodka distillery is completing the bank guarantee for the new duty stamps. In addition, we are about to finish putting into operation the barcode equipment. So, regardless of any problems, the distillery will resume the production within one or two days’, Ms Slepukhina indicated.

‘All the recent legislative innovations concerning spirituous liquors producers exercise a negative influence upon our business. For the regional producers pressured by their North Caucasus competitors, the situation is dire enough as it is, and the forced two-month outage accompanied by the new restrictive operating requirements make it even worse. However, Chelyabinsk regional authorities could improve the situation by introduction of protective measures for regional producers. For example, they could set a charged quality certification for spirituous liquors imported from other regions, in the way their Tyumen colleagues did’, Ms Slepukhina said.