For the first quarter of 2008, imports totaled 51.7 million, down 14.25% from last years totals. The Dominican Republic was the leader with 22.84 million imports into the U.S. with Nicaragua second at 14.6 million cigars and Honduras came in third with 13.66 million cigars. The big three accounted for 98.8% of imports with a small smattering of cigars imported from Costa Rica and Mexico.

Nicaragua showed a nice increase of 15% over last year and their average declared value per cigar increased 40% from just a few years ago, which is good for the Nicaraguan workers.

The large cigar import market of premium and machine-made cigars actually increased in imports over last year by 9.6% . Little cigar imports decreased in the first quarter by about 10%. Total imports scratched out a small gain of 2.7% over last years first quarter numbers.

Humidor Vault

Popularity: 22% [?]