Regulated cigarette sales restart this Monday in Havana

This Monday, the regulated sale of Criollos and Popular brand cigarettes for the month of July resumes in the Havana warehouse network.

Ricardo Montero Lazo, director of the Rama Tobacco Marketing Company, said at a meeting of the temporary working group to confront COVID-19 in the capital that the production problems that made product distribution difficult last month have already been resolved.

The manager announced that a total of six packs of Criollos and two of Popular are scheduled to be delivered to all consumers who are 18 years of age or older in August, the weekly newspaper stated. Havana Tribune.

In July, officials from the Ministry of Domestic Trade announced that the Tabacuba Group would stop delivering 24 million packs of cigarettes each month due to lack of availability of raw materials, for which It was necessary to regulate its sale throughout the country.

The organization reported that cigarettes would be temporarily sold through the supply book to avoid hoarding due to the strong deficit of the product.

The owner Betsy Díaz Velázquez said that the cigarettes would be sold through the booklet although they are not part of the basic basket.

The measure had already been applied since June in 1,095 wineries in Havana, where the regulated sale of eight boxes of Criollo cigars began, one from Aromas and one from Titanes, as well as two cigars and a box of matches, for those over 18 years of age.

"By reducing the production levels of the factories and Brascuba (even though we do not market their cigarettes), there was an abusive increase in prices, and in the face of speculation and hoarding, the governments in the territories chose to regulate their sale as a measure. of containment," he stressed.

The current demand for cigarettes in Cuba is 37 million packs per month. If 24 million are stopped being produced, only 35 percent of that demand is being covered.