CUBANET ... CUBANEWS

February 25, 2002



Cuba's Annual Cigar Festival begins

Yahoo! By Vivian Sequera, Associated Press Writer. Sun Feb 24, 5:27 PM ET

Tobacco sellers packed their display cases with box upon box of Cuba's finest cigars in anticipation of this week's annual Habano Festival — and the onslaught of foreigners willing to pay top dollar for the perfect smoke.

For five days starting Monday, more than 600 people from 47 countries are expected to converge on Cuba to celebrate the communist nation's world-famous tobacco.

Cuba's cigars are also among the world's most expensive. A box of 25 Cohiba "esplendidos" costs $383.75 at one of Havana's many tobacco retail shops.

It's a luxury most Cubans cannot afford in a country where the average monthly government salary is a little less than $10. Instead, Cuban smokers get four cigars — sometimes of dubious quality — on their monthly government ration.

"I don't care about the brand," said retired chauffeur Francisco Rodriguez, puffing away on a cigar as he sat on a park bench. "This costs a peso (a few cents) and it's good," said Rodriguez, 68.

Taking advantage of the growing foreign interest in Cuban cigars, government officials began organizing luxurious dinners, cigar taste tests and plantation visits in an annual event baptized in 1999 as the Habano Festival.

The dinners alone have spurred a profit of about $3 million over the last few years, said Ana Lopez, marketing director for the Cuban cigar company Habanos S.A.

Jean Paul Kauffmann, a French writer and winner of the 1999 festival's Habano Man of the Year award, says Cuban cigars have improved in the last seven or eight years.

"One has to admit it. The difference in quality is enormous," he said.

During his years of sojourning in Cuba, Kauffmann developed the publication Havanoscope, which annually classifies more than 200 Cuban cigars — from the mediocre to the exquisite.

Published in France, Havanoscope has become the European cigar Bible. At least 70 percent of the Cuban cigar exports go to Europe. The other 30 percent is divided among other world markets, including the Middle East, Asia and Canada.

The U.S. trade embargo on communist Cuba prohibits the sales of Cuban cigars in the United States.

Last year, Cuba produced 153 million cigars for export, up from 118 million the previous year. Habanos S.A., a mixed enterprise owned 50 percent by the Cuban government and 50 percent by the French-Spanish company Altadis, still has not revealed its export and profit figures for the last 12 months.

Cuba's cigar industry appears to be thriving despite the loss of one key former smoker — President Fidel Castro.

Castro, who for many years carried a lit cigar in his hand, quit smoking in 1986 during a national health campaign. Still, he traditionally attends the Habano Festival.

"Is it true that he never smoked again? As for me, I haven't given it up," said Castro's older brother, Ramon Castro.

He said he has smoked 65 of his 77 years, learning the habit from his father when he was only 12 years old. "And I haven't gotten rid of the vice."

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