The Ministry of Industry and Trade supported the idea of ​​legalizing the online sale of alcohol

The Ministry of Industry and Trade conceptually supported the bill of Senator Andrey Klishas on the legalization of the online sale of alcohol in Russia, declared Deputy Head of Department Viktor Evtukhov in an interview with TASS.

The official noted that the introduced bill proposes to attract an expanded number of participants to the online sale of alcohol, in particular, online stores and marketplaces.

“At the end of June, the Ministry of Industry and Trade supported this bill conceptually. It seems to me that if control is built up, and it is not so difficult to ensure it, this is a normal initiative,” he said. The Ministry of Finance, Yevtukhov added, also agreed on bills to launch an experiment on the online sale of domestic wine through the Russian Post in Moscow and the Moscow region, but so far no decision has been made on its implementation.

Since 2022, the possibility of liberalizing the alcohol trade has been actively discussed. Initially, it was planned to conduct an experiment with the online sale of Russian wines through the Russian Post from the fall of 2023. The Ministry of Finance was involved in the development of the bill, in the spring of 2023 it was submitted to the State Duma, but in mid-June it became known that the discussion of the bill in parliament was suspended.

Introduced in mid-June, the Klishas bill proposes to allow the sale of alcoholic products sold under a retail sale and purchase agreement concluded between a seller with the necessary licenses and a consumer remotely using the website, TASS reported. The permission will only be valid if the seller is included in the register of persons who own sites for the remote sale of alcohol. Such a register will be maintained by Rosalkoregulirovanie.

In this case, the user will have to confirm his age through an account in the Unified Identification and Authentication System (ESIA), as well as during the receipt of alcohol – using a passport or a QR code about the identification.

As Vedomosti wrote earlier with reference to the Romir study, the number of those who want to buy alcohol online has decreased in Russia. Now a little more than half of Russians (54%) want to use this option, while a year earlier this figure was 63%.