YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN. This year Yerevan's Proshian Brandy Plant plans to purchase 6,000 tons of grapes and 1,000 tons of apples. The process of purchasing mulberry, comel, blackberry and plum has been completed. The plant's executive director Armen Gasparian told NT correspondent that 2,000 tons of mulberry and 4,000 tons of comel was purchased this year. The purchase of pomegranate and quince will start soon. According to A. Gasparian, the prices of grapes and apple have remained at last year's level - 120-130 drams (about 0.4 USD) and 15 drams per kilogram respectively. Every year the plant signs agreements with vine-growers, according to which the vine-growers are obliged to supply the plant with certain quantity of grapes. The plant is mainly specialized in wine and brandy production but a few years ago it also started producing several types of vodka, namely mulberry, comel and apricot vodka, which, according to A. Gasparian, are in great demand on the foreign market. Among the plant's products are wines of 14 types: grape wines and fruit (pomegranate, apple and cherry) wines. Starting this year, the plant will also make plum wine, which, as the director pointed out, is something new in the world. 3-15-year-old brandies of 7-8 types are also produced by the plant. 40% of the Proshian plant's products are exported, particularly to Russia and the US. "The Armenian wines are not inferior to foreign ones in terms of their quality. For that reason we do not have any problem on the foreign market," A. Gasparian said. In his words, this year it is envisaged to make capital investments of about 1 mln USD in the plant and increase the production volumes by 20%.

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