Stockpiling Cigars
01 Jun, 2009- There wasn’t any doubt that manufacturers were going to be stockpiling cigars in advance of the April 1 imposition of the new Federal cigar taxes to fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. But 59.8 million cigars worth?
- That’s the staggering March import total of premium cigars into the United States, according to the latest figures released by the Cigar Association of America, based on data from the U.S. Customs Service.
- For starters, that’s 208% of the March 2008 totals and for the year, the first-quarter import total of 97.6 million cigars is an 89% increase over the first quarter of last year. In fact, the 97.6 million cigar total for the quarter is almost 36% of all of last year’s total (271.3 million)! The breakdown:
- - The Dominican Republic led the shipping parade with 27.6 million cigars, more than three times the amount shipping in March of 2008. For the year, Dominican shipments total 46.3 million, more than double the first quarter shipment in 2008 and about 42% of the total Dominican exports to the U.S. for all of 2008.
- - Honduran shipments were up to 16.5 million cigars, more than triple the March exports to the U.S. for 2008. Year-to-date, Honduran cigar exports to the U.S. are at 23.9 million, up 75% over the first-quarter figures from a year ago, despite the erroneous January figures, in which only 154,000 Honduran cigars were reported to have been shipped to the U.S. So the reality is the 2009 figures are quite a bit higher.
- - Nicaragua remains third, exporting 14.5 million cigars to the U.S. in March, almost triple the 2009 amount for March. For the first quarter, Nicaraguan cigars are again on pace for a new record, shipping 26.2 million cigars compared to 14.6 million in 2008, up 79.5%.
- Even the smaller cigar-exporting countries bulked up in March, with Mexico sending 1.03 million cigars to the U.S., the first time in many years that Mexican premium cigar imports had exceeded the million-unit mark. However, the report again shows no Jamaican imports, which is clearly wrong, as Barrington House International continues to import its cigars for U.S. sale.
- Machine-made cigar imports went wild, too. A total of 115.4 million machine-made large cigars came into the U.S. in March, compared to 48.2 million in March of 2008. But little-cigar imports actually dropped slightly, from 30.1 million in March of 2008 to 29.2 million this year.
- All together, total cigar imports into the U.S. for March were up 133% to 228.1 million. For the first quarter of 2009, the statistics are just as staggering: up 84.3% to 495.4 million cigars imported into the U.S. compared to 268.7 million for the first three months of 2008.
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La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro Especiale has a Connecticut seed wrapper. The Mexican and Nicaraguan binder is enhanced by Nicaraguan and Dominican ligero and an additional peppering of proprietary Nicaraguan and Dominican leaf. 
