Agricultural export value rises 12.4%
Agricultural export value rises 12.4%
Agricultural export value reached US$15.9 billion in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 12.4 per cent over the same period last year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced yesterday.
Wood products and other forestry products saw the highest increase of 21.6 per cent, climbing to a total of $2.7 billion during the period. The export value of cash crops rose just 9.1 per cent to $8.9 billion, while seafood saw an increase of 6.5 per cent to a value of $3.4 billion.
Surging export volumes drove the increases, since the prices of many products have fallen from the same period a year ago, noted the director of the ministry's information and statistics centre, Nguyen Viet Chien.
In the first seven months, rubber exports shot up by 26.7 per cent in volume to 468,000 tonnes, even as export value fell 12.5 per cent to $1.4 million, he said.
During the period, rubber export volumes to China rose 21 per cent, while rubber exports to Taiwan rose 51.4 per cent. Exports to Malaysia tripled in volume, while volumes shipped to India increased by six times.
Wood products exports managed to increase by 22.4 per cent in value in the first seven months to $2.6 billion despite technical barriers in export markets, high input cost and low competitiveness, said Chien.
Among cash crops, pepper saw a hike in export value but a decline in volume since the average export price for pepper rose 26.4 per cent, reaching $6,814 per tonne. Pepper exports therefore rose by 20.3 per cent in value to $546 million but dropped by 3.2 per cent in volume to 80,000 tonnes. The major export market for Vietnamese pepper continued to be the US, accounting for 13.3 per cent of total export volume, followed by Germany and the United Arab Emirates.
Cashews, coffee and tea all posted increase in both volume and value. Cashew exports jumped by 36.5 per cent in volume to 120,000 tonnes and by 19.2 per cent in value to $828 million.
The average price for Vietnamese coffee in the first seven months rose 4.4 per cent to $2,100 per tonne. Coffee exports increased by 31.6 per cent in volume during the period to 1.2 million tonnes and by 25.4 per cent in value to $2.5 billion. Coffee exporters were expecting to achieve a record export value of $4 billion this year against $2.7 billion last year, Chien said.
Germany provided the largest market for Vietnamese coffee, accounting for 12.9 per cent of export value, followed closely by the US, with 12.4 per cent.
During the first seven months, tea exports rose by 5.9 per cent in volume to 73,000 tonnes and by 4.2 per cent in value to $108 million.
Rice exports fell by both volume and export value, seeing a year-on-year decline of 2 per cent in volume to 4.6 million tonnes and a decline of 8.7 per cent in value to $2.1 billion. The average export price also dropped by 6.6 per cent to $458 per tonne.
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