Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’s agro-forestry export revenue is estimated to reach 40 billion USD in 2018, but contributions from products of industrial plants have stayed modest.
Although Vietnam is the 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 for the whole year, the same as last year’s figure due to a drop in its price.
The country has earned 718 million USD from peppercorn export so far, a slump of 32.5 percent over the same period in 2017 as the price in the majority of markets fell 38 percent averagely.
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 the same period last year.
Exports to China, the biggest market of Vietnam’s cassava, have decreased over 2017.
According to Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Vietnam’s peppercorn sector should be drastically restructured, while farm areas in ineffective region reduced and quality improved.
At the same time, the export volume of cashew has reached 342,000 tonnes, up 5.9 percent, with a value of 3.1 billion USD, down 3.1 percent year on year.
Due to weakness in the supply of raw materials, Vietnam has imported 1.14 million of material cashew worth 2.25 billion USD from the beginning of this year. Despite its position as the biggest cashew exporters, the country makes up only 18 percent to the global cashew value chain.
According to the Department of Agro-Product Processing and Market Development, in the coming time, the world cashew price will be go up thanks to rising demand at the end of the year and decrease in supply as Tanzania will buy all raw cashew it produces and African countries’ plans to process cashew instead of exporting it as a raw material.
The MARD reported that Vietnam has 10 cashew production hubs accounting for 94 percent of its total cashew areas. It stressed the need to review the planning of the sector, and said it is working with Cambodia to develop cashew material region.-VNA
VNA
