Tag: Cuba

Cuba Tobacco Area Down Due to Shortages

Photo: Ingo Bartussek
Cuba will reduce the tobacco planting area by about 10 percent in the 2021-2022 season due to a lack of supplies, reports Market Research Telecast.
According to Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, only 22,550 hectares out of the initially planned 25,000 hectares have been planted with tobacco this season.
Farmers in Pinar del Río, which typically accounts for 65 percent of the island’s tobacco production expect to plant only 13,921 hectares this year—the smallest area dedicated to tobacco in the province over the past decade.
Meanwhile, rains from Hurricane Ida last August and resource constraints have delayed the planting of some 3,000 hectares until January, beyond the optimal time.
Cuba’s tobacco exports reached $507 million in 2020, according to Habanos, which markets Cuba’s renowned cigars.
The sector employs some 200,000 workers on the island, rising to 250,000 at the peak of the harvest.
December 27, 2021
Newman Petitions to Import Cuban Tobacco

Photo: danmir12
J.C. Newman Cigar Co. has asked the U.S. Department of State for permission to import Cuban tobacco grown by “independent Cuban entrepreneurs” into the United States. The State Department currently allows American companies to legally import coffee and a few other products from Cuba. If granted, J.C. Newman will be able to import the first Cuban tobacco into the United States in 60 years.
“My family has a long history with Cuban tobacco,” said Drew Newman, great-grandson of company founder J.C. Newman, in a statement. “From 1895 until President Kennedy imposed the Cuban Embargo in 1962, my grandfather and great-grandfather imported millions of pounds of tobacco from Cuba through Tampa. Our last shipment of Cuban tobacco was the subject of a legal dispute decided by the Supreme Court.”
J.C. Newman saved its final bale of Cuban tobacco, which is now the last bale of pre-embargo Cuban tobacco in the United States. This 60-year-old tobacco continues to age in the basement of J.C. Newman’s historic El Reloj cigar factory in Ybor City.
Under the so-called Sec. 515.582 program, the State Department allows “commercial imports of certain specified goods and services produced by independent Cuban entrepreneurs” in order to “help promote [the Cuban people’s] independence from Cuban authorities.” To help support Cuban independence, J.C. Newman is requesting that the State Department include raw tobacco grown by independent farmers in this program.
Authorizing the importation of raw tobacco grown in Cuba would allow us to support independent Cuban entrepreneurs and to prove, once again, that we can roll better cigars with Cuban tobacco than Cuba can.
Drew Newman
“Prior to the Embargo, far more cigars were rolled with Cuban tobacco in Tampa than in Cuba because Tampa was home to the world’s best cigar factories,” said Newman. “Authorizing the importation of raw tobacco grown in Cuba would allow us to support independent Cuban entrepreneurs and to prove, once again, that we can roll better cigars with Cuban tobacco than Cuba can.”
June 17, 2021
Farmers Exceed Cuban Leaf Cultivation Plan

Photo: Habanos
Farmers in Pinar del Rio, Cuba’s primary tobacco producing province, have planted 16,189 hectares of tobacco to date, exceeding the plan of 15,800 hectares of tobacco for the current growing season, reports Prensa Latina.
According to the agricultural specialist of the Tabacuba group in Pinar del Rio, Virginio Morales, the farmers have fulfilled 85 percent of the harvest plan to date.
Some 3,400 workers are engaged in the processing of the leaf, which has reached 2,445 tons. Since the end of December, more than a thousand workers have joined this work.
Most of the tobacco leaf harvested in the area is used to make premium handmade cigars for export, a luxury product demanded in most international markets.
March 24, 2021
Trump Bans Cuban Tobacco

U.S. President Donald Trump has banned U.S. citizens from bringing Cuban tobacco and alcohol into the U.S. as well as staying at Cuban government-owned hotels.

“Today, as part of our continuing fight against communist oppression, I am announcing that the Treasury Department will prohibit U.S. travelers from staying at properties owned by the Cuban government,” Trump said at a White House event. “We’re also further restricting the importation of alcohol and Cuban tobacco.”

Since being in office, Trump has been rolling back a detente with Cuba initiated by former President Barack Obama. Under Obama’s policy, U.S. citizens were allowed to bring back as much Cuban alcohol and tobacco as they could fit in their bags for personal use.

Under Trump’s ban, citizens will be able to buy Cuban alcohol and tobacco while in Cuba but will not be allowed to bring it back to the states.

“The current U.S. authorities insist on the application of a sanctions policy against Cuba that has not achieved the proposed objectives in 60 years,” said a Cuban embassy official in Washington. “It is a wrong policy that is widely rejected by American society and even among Cuban Americans.”

Political observers suggest Trump is trying to lock in the Cuban-American vote in Florida for the upcoming November presidential election.
September 24, 2020
Spreading the word
Cuba’s 21st Habanos Festival ended on Friday in Havana with an auction of cigar humidors that raised about US$1.7 million, according to a Xinhua News Agency story.
The proceeds of the auction will be donated to the nation’s health-care system.
About 2,200 participants from 70 countries were said to have attended the five-day event.
But Jose Maria Lopez, vice president of development at Habanos SA, said the use of social media had helped extend the cigar festival beyond its traditional boundaries, enabling people around the world to experience it.
One of Habanos’ strategic objectives was to globalize premium cigar culture, he said.
As part of the festival agenda, participants visited the best tobacco plantations in the western regions of Vuelta Abajo and Pinar del Rio, as well as traditional cigar factories.
The value of Habanos’ sales increased by seven percent to about $537 million last year.
Currently, Cuba’s main cigar customers are Spain and China. China was described as the top emerging market.
February 25, 2019
Cuban cigar sales increased
Cuba sold cigars worth US$537 million last year, up seven percent on the value of its cigar sales during the previous year, according to a story in The Havana Times quoting a DPA news agency report.
Habanos’ vice president of business development Jose Maria Lopez Inchaurbe said on Monday that, for instance, the company had enjoyed a 100 percent increase in sales in Gulf countries last year.
Lopez was speaking at the launch of the 21st Habanos Cigar Festival.
Habanos is a joint venture formed by the state-owned Cubatabaco and Spanish company Altadis, owned by Imperial Brands.
With brands including Montectristo and Cohiba, Habanos was responsible for 70 percent of the 140 million Cuban cigars sold worldwide last year.
Cuban cigars are sold in about 150 countries, but their main markets are Spain, China, France, Germany and Cuba. The European market is said to account for up to 53 percent of Habanos’ cigar sales.
But China appears to be the up-and-coming market. In January, Lopez told the Xinhua News Agency that his company would this year seek to expand and diversify its presence in China.
Lopez said there was great potential for increasing sales in China, which, in the medium term, could become Habanos’ most important market.
The story said that, according to ‘official figures’, China became the third largest market for the company in 2017, after Spain and France, with an increase in sales of 33 percent on those of 2016.
Due to a growing demand for premium cigars in China, Habanos reached an agreement with the China National Tobacco Corporation in the summer of 2017 to increase sales and work together to promote a knowledge of, and taste for, Cuban cigars in China.
Lopez said that Chinese consumers preferred Habanos’ most exclusive products, including its Cohiba brand, “which is our most important trademark and greatest exponent of luxury within the Cuban cigar market”.
“Between 40 and 50 percent of the Chinese demand is concentrated in the Cohiba brand, which is very high,” said Lopez. “One of our intentions when we talk about developing the tobacco culture in that country is to educate the Chinese consumer that not all cigars are Cohiba.”
Working with the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, through which domestic imports are made to the Chinese mainland, growth rates of between 20 and 30 percent per year were expected, said Lopez.
February 19, 2019
Expanding sales in China
Habanos S.A. plans next year to export a premium cigar made specially for the Chinese market, according to a Xinhua News Agency story quoting the company’s director of marketing, Ernesto Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, who was speaking ahead of this week’s China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, said that launching the Chinese-market cigar was a priority for Habanos.
China is reported to have the fastest-growing market for Habanos, a 50-50 joint venture between the Cuban government and Imperial Brands.
Gonzalez was quoted as saying that sales of premium Cuban cigars in China had risen in 2017 by 33 percent, year-on-year.
The sales surge was said to have been largely due to an agreement signed in July 2017 between Habanos, which markets Cuban cigars around the world, and the China National Tobacco Corporation. The agreement aimed to increase sales in China by informing consumers there about Cuban cigars.
Cuba’s premium hand-rolled cigars were introduced to the Chinese market a decade ago, but it is believed that there is still room for much growth.
Gonzalez said that Habanos would use the opportunities provided by the CIIE to try to forge new partnerships and expand sales.
“We still have a lot of potential in the Chinese market, and we must continue to strive so consumers know about our brands and cigar culture,” he said.
November 5, 2018
Cuba aims for big harvest
Cuban agriculture authorities yesterday said they aimed this season to harvest more than 34,000 tons of tobacco, despite the damage caused by Hurricane Michael to the crop in the western Pinar del Rio province, according to a Xinhua News Agency story.
The president of the state-owned Tobacco Business Group (Tabacuba), Justo Fuentes, said the company had signed contracts with tobacco farmers based on that figure, before adding that “the harvest must be higher in hectares, quality and yield this year”.
The tobacco season got underway in the central Sancti Spiritus province, Cuba’s second largest tobacco producing area, on Wednesday.
Tabacuba aims to plant more than 30,000 ha this season, which will conclude in the first months of 2019.
Meanwhile, work is underway to recover from the damage caused by Hurricane Michael in the Vueltabajo region of Pinar del Rio, where thousands of tobacco ha were damaged earlier this week.
Vuetlabajo, considered by some to be the world’s best tobacco producing region, provides about 70 percent of national tobacco production in Cuba.
The tobacco industry is Cuba’s fourth largest employer, providing permanent jobs for about 200,000 people. At its peak, a quarter of a million people are employed in the harvest.
In the 2017-2018 season, producers harvested about 30,000 tons of tobacco, 6,000 tons more than during the previous season.
October 12, 2018
Myanmar to export cigars
The Burmese Tobacco Trading Company (BTTC) has said it is to collaborate with the Robaina tobacco family to roll out the Don Alejo Robaina Cigar brand next year in Europe, North America and Asia.
According to a BTTC press note issued through PRNewswire, BTTC was set up by the Huang family, described as a ‘prominent Chinese-American group of business owners’.
‘Together with Robaina family engineers, they discovered promising land in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar (Burma) that is very similar to the tobacco farmlands of Pinar del Rio, Cuba,’ the press note said.
‘The now-established farm: “Myanmar Farms” boasts close to 80 acres, and has been supervised and managed by select members from the Robaina family’s team.’
“The Robaina team members are extremely excited with the quality of tobacco that has been produced at Myanmar Farms,” said Jimmy Huang.
“The altitude, climate, and rich virgin-soil in Burma was an undiscovered treasure until now. We look forward to the roll out of our premium cigars in the near future.”
The Don Alejo Robaina brand will be dedicated to the memory of the ‘Godfather of Cuban tobacco’, Don Alejandro Robaina.
‘The Robaina family is globally known for growing some of the highest quality tobacco worldwide, from their plantations in Pinar del Rio, Cuba,’ the press note said.
‘Alejandro Robaina, the long-time family patriarch was globally recognized by many as the “Godfather of Cuban tobacco”. After his passing, the Robaina family continues to carry out his legacy in Cuba.
‘They are endeavoring to further the Robaina surname, in this case, by working with the Burmese Tobacco Trading Company. The Robaina family looks forward to producing a truly unique cigar using the time honored practices of Alejandro Robaina.’
December 11, 2017
CNTC, Habanos sign deal
The China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) and Cuba’s Habanos S.A. have signed a letter of intent on increasing Cuba’s cigar exports to China, according to a Xinhua News Agency story.
The CNTC’s general manager, Ling Chengxing, and the co-presidents of Habanos, Inocente Nunez and Luis Sanchez-Harguindey, signed the agreement in Havana on Sunday.
According to the agreement, Habanos will assist with cigar production in China while expanding its cigar sales there.
“With the support of the Cuban side and the Chinese side, and the Chinese and Cuban people, I am sure that Cuban tobacco is going to do very well in China,” said Ling, who doubles as the director-general of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, the regulator of China’s tobacco industry.
The story said that Cuba’s cigar and cigarette sales to China accounted for more than half of its sales by volume and about 70 percent by revenue.
Habanos, a joint venture between Cuba’s state-owned Cubatabaco and Altadis, an affiliate of Imperial Brands, recorded revenue of about US$450 million last year.
July 25, 2017