Hanoi (VNA) – The agro-forestry-fisheries sector's export revenue reached about 32.1 billion USD in the first eight months of this year, up 21.6 percent, while imports were estimated at 28.8 billion USD, up 44.1 percent, resulting in a trade surplus of about 3.3 billion USD, a fall of 48.2 percent over the same period last year, reported the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

Revenue from major agricultural products recorded a 13.6 percent growth to 13.9 billion USD, while forestry exports rose 42.7 percent to 11.2 billion USD, and aquatic products’ revenue increased 7.1 percent to 5.6 billion USD. Exports of livestock hit 286 million USD, up 15.9 percent.

Despite a fall of 1.3 percent in volume, export revenue of peppercorn still rose over 50 percent to 666 million USD. However, rice and tea suffered fall in both volume and value.

The major export market of Vietnamese agro-forestry-fisheries products was Asian countries which accounted for 41.5 percent of the market share, followed by America with 31.3 percent, Europe 11.3 percent, Africa 1.9 percent and Oceania 1.5 percent.

The US remained the biggest market of the sector with consumption of 9.3 billion USD worth of the products, accounting for 29.1 percent of the market share. It was followed by China with 18.9 percent of the market share.

In the first eight months of this year, Vietnam imported 28.8 billion USD of agro-forestry-fisheries products, up 44.1 percent year on year, including 2.9 billion USD worth of goods (mostly cashew nuts) from Cambodia and 2.7 bilion USD from the US.

In August alone, the sector earned nearly 3.4 billion USD from export, down 21.6 percent over the same time last year and 22 percent compared to the previous month.

Downturn was seen in export revenue of the majority of products, excepting for cassava, grain and milk products.

The sharpest fall was seen in the export value of furniture at over 50 percent, followed by tra fish at 30 percent, vegetable nearly 26 percent, fertilizer 24 percent, and peppercorn 21.5 percent.

The ministry explained that COVID-19 impacts forced factories to slow down operations or even shut down, affecting production for export.

The MARD said that in the rest of the year, it will continue to strengthen trade promotion to increase exports, while supporting localities and businesses in exporting farm produce, coordinating with relevant agencies and representative offices abroad to give market forecast, and applying online assessment on agricultural products./.