60 trucks with Armenian brandy stuck on border as Russia boosts customs control

PanARMENIAN.Net - Some 60 trucks exporting brandy from Armenia to Russia are put on hold at the Upper Lars checkpoint in Georgia amid a heightened customs control explained by Russia as a move to prevent possible counterfeit alcohol from entering the country, the commercial attaché at the Armenian embassy in Russia, Vahan Hakobyan, has said.

“Supervision against brandy started a lot earlier in Russia. The Russian customs service began carrying out customs control for imported Armenian brandy in March-April. They explain this by saying that they had discovered violations, such as fake brandy. They increased the inspection a few days ago. Previously the inspection was carried out against come specific importers, whereas now all brandy coming from Armenia is subjected to customs control,” Armenpress cited Hakobyan as saying on Tuesday, October 3.

According to him, the Russian customs service uses two types of methods – checking the paperwork or inspecting the goods. In the event of the goods being sent to inspection, the vehicles have to stay at the checkpoint until the completion of the procedure which could take somewhere from a week to a month. This is the reason of the traffic congestion at the Upper Lars checkpoint.

Some 60 vehicles are now waiting for the completion of the inspection to have permission to proceed. But this doesn’t negatively affect movement of other vehicles there, and other goods enter Russia normally. “This doesn’t affect the total volume,” he said.

“Whether the supervision has been increased due to more violations being recorded or whether there’s some political subtext to this, I can’t say, because I don’t have such information,” the commercial attaché said when asked whether he sees any tendencies of artificially causing obstacles.

Other goods pass the checkpoint normally.

On an average, some 200 Armenian trucks enter Russia every day.