The country will see a total output of 400,000 tonnes of the nut this year, which is 50,000 tonnes higher than last year.

In the first two months of the year, Vietnam exported a total of 23,000 tonnes of cashew, earning $124 million, said the association, adding that those figures marked a 13 percent increase in volume and 33 percent growth in value against the same period last year.

At present, Vietnamese cashew nuts are exported to 50 countries and territories, with the US being the largest market with 25 percent of the total cashew export volume.

Besides cashew nuts, the association expects exports of products processed from the nut to increase in the coming time.

However, the biggest challenge for export cashew processors is a shortage of raw material for processing factories, the association said.

The association has predicted that the processing industry would purchase 400,000 tonnes of raw cashews on the domestic market and import an additional 250,000 tonnes this year to process 180,000 tonnes of the nut and 60,000 tonnes of cashew oil. Vietnam has 220 factories processing cashew for export with a total design capacity of 600,000-700,000 tonnes a year.