Agricultural export value rises by over 30 per cent

The major farming products saw the largest export value growth at 36.6 per cent to $12.3 billion. Following that, the fisheries export value grew 24.9 per cent to $5.6 billion and then the forestry export value at 14.2 per cent to $.8 billion.

China was the largest export market for Vietnamese farming, forestry and fishery produce, reaching $4.56 billion in value. The second largest was the US with a total export value at $3.32 billion.

Nguyen Viet Chien, director the ministry's Information and Statistics Centre, said the positive outlook in the domestic and world markets contributed to the strong growth in export value of these products. While the export volume had a slight increase, the value saw a sharp surge.

With such an increase, the country is surely to succeed its target of $23 billion in exports of farming, forestry and fisheries this year.

Almost all key export products had a positive first 11 months of this year, Chien said. Rice exports experienced a year-on-year increase of 16.7 per cent in volume to 6.8 million tonnes and of 7.1 per cent in value to $3.5 billion. Rice export prices increased 8.1 per cent to $505 per tonne from the same period last year.

Vietnam 's advantage in promoting rice export activities is due to a high demand and high export price on the world market, said Trang Hieu Dung, head of the ministry's Planning Department. Meanwhile, natural disasters in other rice producing countries decreased the world's rice supply.

The rice export volume is expected to reach 7 million tonnes by the end of this year.

During the first 11 months, coffee exports saw a slight dip in volume to 1.1 million tonnes with an increase of 1.5 folds in value from the same period last year. The current value totals $2.3 billion . The export price for coffee jumped by 1.5 folds to $2,210 per tonne.

The coffee industry estimated it will export 1.19 million tonnes of coffee for this whole year.

The pepper industry also saw an increase in both the volume and value of exports in the first 11 months. The export volume and value climbed by 10.5 per cent to 122,000 tonnes and by 83 per cent to $713 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, some key farming products increased in export value but decreased in export volume, such as rubber and cashews, due to a big increase in export prices, said Chien.

The average export price of rubber surged by 50 per cent to $4,263 per tonne against the same period last year, therefore the export value of the product had a year-on-year increase of 37.5 per cent to $2.7 billion. However, the export volume decreased by 4.7 per cent to 651,000 tonnes.

Exported cashew products saw the same results as rubber. The cashew exports increased by 35.4 per cent in value to $1.4 billion while reduced by 6.7 per cent in volume to 164,000 tonnes compared to the same period last year.