Cigar trade is smoking

CUBA sold cigars worth $753 million last year, up 7 per cent from 2017, despite an international spike in antismoking laws.

Cigar company Habanos, which has a monopoly on the industry in Cuba, released the sales figures yesterday.

Sales increased despite Cuban cigars being banned in the US.

The company’s vice-president of business development Jose Maria Lopez Inchaurbe said the company had always been popular in Europe and had seen a 100 per cent increase in some Gulf countries.