DUSHANBE , July 27, Asia-Plus -- Tajikistan has put a ban on supply of mineral water “Borjomi-Lights” bottled in Kazakhstan .  

Anvar Sharifov, the head of the department for protection of consumers’ rights and control of advertising activity of Tajikistan ’s antimonopoly agency, told journalists on July 26 that a chemical test conducted by the center for examination of medicines has shown that that water is not fit for taking and even dangerous for health.   

According to him, “the packages do not contain information about the product and its characteristics and labels on the bottle are in the Kazakh and Georgian languages only, while by Tajikistan ’s laws everything being realized in Tajikistan should have information in the Tajik and Russian languages.”  

“After revealing violations the antimonopoly agency has issued ruling obligating the Tajik limited liability company ”Transkompaniya”, which supplied this product to Tajikistan, to withdraw all non-standard product from circulation and destroy it,” Mr. Sharifov said.  

Besides, “Transkompaniya” was supposed to submit to the antimonopoly commission all documentations on purchase prices and prices, at which it was realized in Tajikistan .  

“We consider that prices of “Borjomi-Lights” were given too high,” Anvar Sharifov said.   

He added that the company has not yet submitted those documentations to the antimonopoly agency and therefore it was fined in an amount of 100 minimal wages.  

“The Antimonopoly commission has got in touch with the International holding, Georgian Glass and Mineral Water Co, N.V. (GG&MW), producing “Borjomi” natural mineral water, and they told us that their products are provided with information about their characteristics in the Georgian and Russian languages,” Anvar Sharifov noted, adding that they on July 19 applied to “Tojikstandart” (Tajik agency for standardization and metrology) and the country’s customs services asking to put ban on import of the Kazakhstan-bottled “Borjomi-Lights” to Tajikistan.

In the meantime, products manufactured by GG&MW itself are supplied to Tajikistan without any problems.     

ABOUT: The international holding, Georgian Glass and Mineral Water Co. N.V. (GG&MW), was founded in 1997 by European investors, international financial institutions, and Georgian representatives.  On April 11, 1997 , the company received the official license granting permission to extract and bottle Borjomi natural mineral water.  Today, GG&MW owns two mineral water bottling factories, which operate with highly sophisticated equipment. With the help of over 1000 employees, the factories bottled more than 120 million bottles of mineral water in 2002.  European experts oversee the process of the bottling operations and product quality.