Farm, seafood exports rise

Agricultural, forestry and seafood exports totalled US$7.2 billion in the first five months of the year, an increase of 16 per cent over the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In May alone, export value increased by $500 million over the previous month to $1.6 billion.

Seafood exports saw the most marked increase in the first five months, rising by 17.3 per cent to $1.6 billion, noted the director of the ministry’s Information Technology and Statistics Centre, Nguyen Viet Chien.

Among leading cash crops, rice exports rose by 14 per cent during the period to 2.9 million tonnes, worth $1.5 billion. Pepper fetched higher prices in May, increasing an average of $50-100 per tonne to $1,300-1,500, allowing pepper exports to fetch a value of $181 million in the first five months on a volume of 59,000 tonnes.

Rubber prices jumped to $2,693 per tonne in the first five months, a dramatic 94 per cent increase over the same period last year. Rubber exports totalled 191,000 tonnes and earned $513 million, an increase of just 3.72 per cent in volume and approximately double in value.

Coffee exports, on the other hand decreased in both volume and value. Total coffee export volume only reached 584,000 tonnes, a decline of 11.4 per cent, while export value reached just $810 million, a plunge of 17.3 per cent.

The decreases were blamed on a 7.5-per-cent decrease in average coffee prices to an average of $1,386 per tonne.

Most agricultural exports remained unprocessed products that were susceptible to fluctuating prices on the world market, noted Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Thanh Bien. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam farm exports, Vietnam seafood exports