[8 October 2012] - The value of agricultural exports reached US$20.4 billion in the first nine months of this year, an increase of 10.2 per cent over the same period last year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced in the last week of September.

So far until end of September 2012, seven of Viet Nam's cash crops have entered the so-called "billion-dollar club", with exports totalling at least US$1 billion annually. These products included seafood, rice, coffee, rubber, wood, cashews, and cassava. Exports of these staples continued their stable trend and reached a combined estimated value of $11.1 billion during the nine-month period, a 6.2-per-cent increase.

Viet Nam exported 6.2 million tonnes of rice during the period, worth $2.78 billion – an increase of 4.5 per cent. China became Viet Nam's biggest rice importer during the period, while other regional customers such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia all reduced their buys.

The average price of Vietnamese rice has fallen by 9.2 per cent since last year to $452 per tonne.

Coffee exports weighed in at 1.36 million tonnes during the first nine months of the year, for a total value of $2.85 billion,a 36.8-per-cent increase. Germany and the US continued to be the leading importers of Vietnamese coffee, while Indonesia has become an emerging market with its imports of Vietnamese coffee a whopping nine times higher than last year.

Belgium, the leading consumer of Vietnamese coffee last year, meanwhile, have seen decreases in both volume and value of up to 50 per cent this year, noted Viet Nam Coffee and Cacao Association chairman Luong Van Tu.

Coffee export volumes were projected to decline overall due to shorter supplies but would increase again at the next harvest later this year, Tu said.

The US remained the biggest importer of Vietnamese seafood during the nine-month period, accounting for 19 per cent of the total export value, followed by Japan at 15 per cent and South Korea at 7.9 per cent. — VNS