Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’s agro-forestry export revenue is estimated to reach 40 billionUSD in 2018, but contributions from products of industrial plants have stayed modest.
Although Vietnam isthe world biggest exporter of cashew and peppercorn, and the second of coffee,the country is expected to earn only 3.5 billion USD from exporting coffee forthe whole year, the same as last year’s figure due to a drop in its price.
The country has earned718 million USD from peppercorn export so far, a slump of 32.5 percent over thesame period in 2017 as the price in the majority of markets fell 38 percentaveragely.
Meanwhile, so far,Vietnam has shipped abroad 3.4 million tonnes of cassava for 905.2 million USD,a fall of nearly 4 percent in volume and 0.45 percent in value compared to thesame period last year.
Exports to China, thebiggest market of Vietnam’s cassava, have decreased over 2017.
According to Ministerof Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Vietnam’speppercorn sector should be drastically restructured, while farm areas inineffective region reduced and quality improved.
At the same time, theexport volume of cashew has reached 342,000 tonnes, up 5.9 percent, with a valueof 3.1 billion USD, down 3.1 percent year on year.
Due to weakness in thesupply of raw materials, Vietnam has imported 1.14 million of material cashewworth 2.25 billion USD from the beginning of this year. Despite its position asthe biggest cashew exporters, the country makes up only 18 percent to the globalcashew value chain.
According to theDepartment of Agro-Product Processing and Market Development, in the comingtime, the world cashew price will be go up thanks to rising demand at the endof the year and decrease in supply as Tanzania will buy all raw cashew itproduces and African countries’ plans to process cashew instead of exporting itas a raw material.
The MARD reported thatVietnam has 10 cashew production hubs accounting for 94 percent of its totalcashew areas. It stressed the need to review the planning of the sector, andsaid it is working with Cambodia to develop cashew material region.-VNA
VNA
