By Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA, Oct 6 1997 (IPS)

Honduras is looking to cash in on the upsurge of popularity in smoking cigars – particularly in the United States – with an increase in exports moving it up the sales rankings of Latin American producers.

Currently Honduras in in third place behind Cuba and the Dominican Republic but the boom in cigar smoking in the United States and Europe has raised hopes here that increased exports will improve the economy and allow Honduras to compete more efficiently in the globalized market.

Fernando Garcia, Minister of Commerce and Investment, said tobacco products are now one of the four main sources of exports, together with coffee, bananas and shrimp.

According to Garcia, if projections for the growth of cigar consumption at the world level are confirmed “we will be a country with great competitive advantage, seeing as we are already number three in world sales.” Reports issued by The Foundation for Export Research and Development (FIDE) a private group financed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), indicate that cigar production will continued to increase.

According to FIDA, cigar exports to the US market, which were 8.4 million dollars in 1992, rose to 27.7 million dollars in 1996 with many small shops opening across the nation dedicated to selling and promoting cigars.

There are 11 cigar factories in Honduras, located in the west, east, north and central regions. But the center of production is found in the eastern city of Danli, some 180 miles from the capital, Tegucigalpa.

The Plasencia Tabacos SRL factory in Danli, owned by the Cuban- born businessman Nestor Plasencia, is one of the most important and prestigious in the country. The businessman, who is about to open a new tobacco plant thought to be the largest cigar factory in Latin America, and valued at one million dollars, says that in the last two years, the greatest demand for cigars has come from the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and the United States.

Data gathered by specialized magazines in the United State, such as the Cigar Association of America, indicate that the market for cigars in that country – considered to be the largest in the world – has registered extraordinary growth in the last four years.

According to these reports, the value of tobacco imports from Latin America rose to 88.9 million dollars in 1995, and reached 115 million dollars in the first months of 1996.

The main tobacco exporting countries in Latin America are Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Brazil and, to a lesser degree, Mexico. Honduran officials are working to make sure that tobacco is one of the country’s principal export products, along with coffee and bananas. These, together with shrimp, tourism and manufacturing total almost 1.1 billion dollars in foreign sales.

The tobacco industry currently employs some 10,000 people, who earn less than 100 dollars per month. The government and businessmen have proposed increasing manual labor and supplanting Cuba as the number one producer of cigars in the world. (FIN/IPS/tm/dam-jc/if/dtk/97)

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