VN: Export values drop by 4.8%

HA NOI (VNS)— The agro, fishery and forestry export value, in the first eight months of 2015, fell by 4.8 per cent over the same period last year to US$19.31 billion.

The figure includes $2.38 billion earned in August, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development reported on Thursday.

During the first eight months of this year, the export value of farming products saw a year-on-year reduction of 7.7 per cent to $10.88 million, of which rice, rubber and coffee experienced the strongest falls in export value.

Rice exports to the tune of 4.09 million tonnes brought home $1.76 billion, down 15 per cent in value and 8.6 per cent in volume.

China remained the largest market for Vietnamese rice, accounting for 35 per cent of the total export volume. Notably, Malaysia emerged as the third largest market with 74 per cent growth.

In eight months, coffee shipments reached 874,000 tonnes for an export value of $1.79 billion, down 33 per cent in both volume and value against the same period last year.

Germany and the United States continued to be the two largest export markets for Vietnamese coffee, holding 14.9 per cent and 11.3 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile, rubber exports in the eight months stood at 632,000 tonnes for nearly $922 million, marking 11 per cent growth in volume but a 10 per cent decline in value over the same period last year.

China, Malaysia and India remained the three largest export markets for Vietnamese rubber, accounting for 72 per cent of the national total rubber exports.

Exports of tea also saw a drop of 5.6 per cent in volume to 79,000 tonnes and 4.8 per cent in value to $134 million compared with the same period of last year.

Pepper saw a plunge of 21.7 per cent in export volume to 104,000 tonnes but a slight reduction of 1 per cent in value due to a surge in export value by 28 per cent to $9,373 per tonne of pepper against the same period last year.

However, cassava exports gained growth of some 30 per cent in volume to 3.05 million tonnes and 26 per cent in value to $951 million in the first eight months.

Cashew exports also achieved a year-on-year increase of 8.4 per cent in volume to 214,000 tonnes and 22 per cent in value to $1.55 billion for the eight months.

The ministry said the national seafood export value fetched $4.13 billion, down 17.5 per cent year-on-year. The United States was still the largest export market for Vietnamese seafood products, accounting for 19.2 per cent, but the total export value to the market saw a reduction of 29.4 per cent in comparison with the same period last year.

The seafood exports to Japan and South Korea, both key markets, also saw a plunge of 10.6 per cent and 10.5 per cent, respectively.

However, exports of Vietnamese seafood achieved strong growth of 19 per cent for Thailand and 30 per cent for the United Kingdom, the ministry said.

Viet Nam had a year-on-year surge of 8.5 per cent in forestry export value to $4.3 billion during the first eight months of this year.

The United States, Japan and China were the three largest export markets of Vietnamese wooden products, holding 66.9 per cent of the national export value.

The two export markets with the highest growth in export value were the United States (19.2 per cent) and Germany (10.3 per cent), the ministry said. 

Source: VNS