Cuba's cigar festival auction collects nearly 1 mln USD

Seven luxury humidors were auctioned for nearly 1 million U.S. dollars on Saturday at the end of a cigar festival in Havana.

The annual festival, dedicated to the Habanos brand this year, has collected a total of 952,500 U.S. dollars for seven humidors, furniture to keep cigars at optimum condition.

The collected money will be donated entirely to the Cuban public health system, said festival organizer Habanos S.C. in a statement.

The centerpiece of the auction was a humidor with 2,500 Cohiba cigars that together went for 320,000 U.S. dollars.

The furniture was made with ebony, sycamore and cedar and decorated with tobacco leaves coated with 24-karat gold.

Habanos S.C. is a joint venture of the state-owned Tabacuba and Altadis, as well as the French-German subsidiary of the British multinational Imperial Tobacco, which sells 27 brands of premium handmade Cuban cigars in 150 countries.

The company, controlling 70 percent of the world cigar market, said Monday that its sales reached 428 million dollars in 2015, 4 percent more than the previous year. Endi