By Jay Amberg, Bloomberg Lifestyles. Cigar News. April 28, 2000
Havana, April 20 -- Cuba estimates the 39-year-old U.S. trade embargo has cost the country's cigar industry about $1.1 billion in lost revenue, according to recent reports in Granma, Cuba's state newspaper.
Speaking recently in Havana's Palace of the Revolution, Ada
Lopez Garcia, marketing director of Habanos SA, the company that markets and globally distributes Cuban cigars, said the blockade (as Cubans call the embargo) has hurt Cuba's cigar sales. ``If its doors were opened, Cuba could participate with 295 million Habanos (cigars) in the U.S. market,''
Lopez said. ``The conditions of agriculture and technical infrastructure could be created to supply that figure, given the transportation facilities and the acquisition of lower priced supplies because of the proximity of the U.S.''
Garcia was speaking at hearing for the presentation of evidence in a civil lawsuit Cuba is conducting against the U.S.
The lawsuit, filed on Jan. 3 in the civil and administrative section of the City of Havana People's Provincial Court, seeks restitution for economic damages to the island's economy from the U.S. trade embargo.
Garcia told the court that in 1958, the U.S. and Spain were to the two top importers of Cuban cigars, but from 1961-63 export levels to the U.S. dropped abruptly. ``From 1964 onward, because of the blockade, cigar outlets began to relocate in other nations and Cuban cigars were absorbed by
Spain, Western Europe and the former socialist bloc,'' Garcia said.
Because of the reorientation of the Cuba cigar market, Garcia said in 1964-65 Cuba had to spend more than $1 million on new advertising and promotions. ``Based on U.S. demand for Habanos prior to the blockade, between 1964-98, Cuba's inability to export its cigars to the U.S. has cost the
country $540 million,'' Garcia said.
Garcia alleged the U.S. was responsible for the introduction of blue mold, a fungus that devastated Cuba's tobacco plants during the 1979-80 harvests. ``As part of U.S. bacteriological warfare against Cuba the island was unable to maintain its export (cigars) levels on the international market
for two years and Cuba had to invest substantial resources on fungicides and research to find tobacco varieties that could resist the fungus,'' Garcia said.
A similar allegation was made at the hearing on the loss of income from Cuba's sugar cane crop. Cubans blamed the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for introducing "rust disease'' to Cuba's sugar cane fields.
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