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CIGAR IMPORTS ROLL PAST 300 MILLION Print E-mail
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Los Angeles, February 4 – The unstoppable flow of premium cigars headed into the United States continued strong as the Cigar Association of America’s report for November 2007 was released.

For the month, 32.9 million premium cigars entered the U.S., about the same as in 2007. But for the year, the total rolled past the magic 300 million mark at 301.8 million. If imports for December resemble the 29 million imported in 2007 or the 33 million from 2006, the total for 2007 will become the second or third-largest on record. The 1998 total of 334.6 million is second all-time and the 329.5 million from 2005 is third. The all-time mark of 417. 8 million was set in 1997.

The 300 million-plus total for 2007 is the fourth year in a row that premium cigar imports surpassed 300 million. Prior to the start of this current streak in 2005, only the Cigar Boom years of 1997 and 1998 had ever had imports of more than 300 million into the U.S. It’s a good sign of a steady and perhaps modestly expanding market.

Leading the way, of course, are the three star cigar-making countries that send almost all premium cigars to the U.S.:

  • The Dominican Republic shipped 15.8 million premium cigars to the U.S. in the month of November, down 6 1/2 percent from last year. But for the first 11 months of 2007, shipments were up, at 160.8 million, an increase of 2.8 percent.

  • Honduras maintained its place at no. 2, with 10.0 million cigars imported in November, 10 percent ahead of 2006. For January-November of 2007, Honduran imports are up a little at 75.5 million, 3.9 percent ahead of the year prior.

  • The big mover in 2007 has been Nicaragua, the site of more and more cigar-making activity. Imports for November of 2007 were essentially equal to the year before, but the 11-month total is up to 61.9 million, a substantial 22.1 percent increase over the 2006 total of 50.6 million at the same point.

    These three countries accounted for 98.7 percent of all imports in November of 2007 and 98.8 percent of all imports for the year. Two other cigar-producing countries have registered more than a million cigars exported to the U.S.: the Bahamas at 1.49 million through 11 months and Mexico at 1.33 million.

    Overall cigar imports, which include machine-made and little cigars, have also zoomed in 2007. In the 11-month report, the total number of cigars – of all types – imported into the U.S. rose to 1.12 billion for 2007, against 948.4 million in 2006, an increase of 17.7 percent. Machine-made cigar imports are up 15.4 percent for the year, from 448.1 million to 516.9 million, as a major shift in production has occurred from U.S. facilities to the Dominican Republic and Honduras. And little cigar imports continued up dramatically, ahead 36.5 percent from 2006.

    That’s a lot of folks smoking a lot of cigars.

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    “A record for U.S. cigar consumption was set in 1965 after the Surgeon General's warning about cigarettes in 1964.