Vietnam ’s agro-forestry-seafood export turnover in the first five months of the year reached 7.2 billion USD, representing a year-on-year increase of nearly 16 percent, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Of the total, agricultural products earned 3.9 billion USD, up 7 percent; seafood, 1.62 billion USD, up 17.3 percent; and forest products, 1.1 billion USD, up 9.5 percent.

All the three commodity groups saw high export growths because prices of almost all products were higher than 2009.

Rubber topped the list of export agro-forestry products that saw increases in both volume and value with 191,000 tonnes worth 513 million USD exported in the five-month period, representing respective increases of 3.7 percent and nearly 100 percent.

It was followed by tea with 45,000 tonnes worth 62 million USD, up 11.3 percent in volume and 22 percent in value; cashew nuts with 61,000 tonnes worth 319 million USD, up 4.4 percent in volume and 24 percent in value; and pepper with 59,000 tonnes worth 181 million USD, up over 10 percent in volume and 47 percent in value.

For seafood exports, Vietnam saw stable growths in its leading export markets over the past five months, including Japan with an increase of 17.8 percent, the US with 16.5 percent and the Republic of Korea with 19.7 percent.

In contrast to this trend, five-month coffee exports decreased in both volume and value, registering a fall of 11.4 percent and 17.3 percent respectively. The total coffee export volume only reached 584,000 tonnes, bringing home 810 million USD. The decreases were blamed on coffee price fall of 7.5 percent year0on-year to 1,386 USD per tonne.

The rice export volume in the first five months dropped 0.8 percent compared to the same period last year to 2.9 million tonnes, but the product’s export turnover rose by 3.5 percent to 1.5 billion USD.

In the five-month period, the agricultural sector imported around 5.4 billion USD worth of materials for processing, up 47 percent year-on-year./.