In order to increase the export, sale, competitiveness and awareness of Georgian wine abroad the Government of Georgia has decided to co-finance marketing campaigns of wine companies in export markets except for CIS countries. The marketing budget for one company per year was set at GEL 600,000.
The new government program immediately caused great interest among the representatives of the wine industry, so three months later BM.GE got interested in how the program was conducted.
As National Wine Agency declares, no wine companies have yet applied for the co-financing program, but the agency notes that they do have information several that wine companies will be engaged in the program.
The point is that details of the program have not been clearly announced at the presentation, as wine companies can only receive co-financing from the budget from 2023 with one condition, they must show data on increased exports and marketing for 2021-2022.
Iago Bitarishvili, founder of "Iago Wine" is not going to be involved in the project because he thinks that it may be relatively difficult for a small winery to meet the conditions of the program, while the founder of the wine company "Badagoni" Giorgi Salakaia says, it is more suitable for small cellars.
"As for the issue of financing in 2023, this condition is not really meaningless, because in fact, we have contracted the total exports in 2022, and in the hope that this funding will be in 2023, we are already reviewing next year's contracts, so the co-financing in 2023 is normal," - Giorgi Salakaia stated to BM.GE and added that there was no communication with "Badagon" at the stage of developing the program.
BM.GE also talked to the CEO of Schuchmann Group about the co-subsidization program. Nutsa Abramishvili says that due to the pandemic, exhibitions and various events are delayed and, consequently, they do not participate in marketing activities at this stage to protect the safety of their employees, but she deeply believes that the new program is important for popularizing Georgian wine.
