Cuban cigar producers acknowledge that a worldwide slump in demand for luxury goods has hurt exports of the island's word-famous stogies, but say they are hopeful about regaining some of the lost market this year.
"We are very optimistic and have a lot of work to do," Jaime Garcia, of the Cuban cigar company Habanos S.A. told reporters on Thursday.
While refusing to give more precise figures, Garcia said that Cuba's cigars continued to bring in US$240 million annually even though cigar exports were down about 8 percent or 9 percent last year.
Garcia spoke at a news conference on Cuba's Habanos Festival Feb. 24 to Feb. 28, an annual gathering of hundreds of cigar aficionados from around the world. The festival is hosted by Habanos S.A., a joint partnership between Cuba's government and the European firm Altadis that markets the island's cigars around the globe.
Cuban cigar sales dropped around Latin America last year as various countries struggled with regional economic problems, including the devaluation of their national currencies.
A drop in sales in Mexico, where many Americans travel to buy Cuban cigars to sneak back home,has been blamed on increased US customs controls after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Because of the four-decade-old US trade embargo against the communist-run island, Cuban products -- including its coveted cigars -- cannot be legally sold in the US.
Along with regional and global economic downturns, Cuba's cigar industry was also buffeted last year by a pair of hurricanes that leveled scores of curing houses in the western tobacco growing province of Pinar del Rio.
Habanos S.A. has said that in 2001 Cuba produced 153 million cigars for export that brought in more than US$200 million.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
RSS