Rubber, rice exports drop in six months

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) reported that exports of agro-forestry and seafood products were US$2.227 billion in June, bringing the six month total to US$14.67 billion, an increase of 11.2% over last year.

Of which, export earnings from agricultural products jumped by 6.6% to US$7.15 billion, forestry products by 14.9% to US$3.01 billion and seafood by 24.4% to US$3.45 billion.

Products with high growth in both volume and value included coffee, pepper, cashew nuts, seafood, wood and timber products, while other key products like rice, rubber, tea, cassava and cassava products witnessed significant decline.

As one striking example, pepper exports spiked up 36.2% in volume and 47.8% in value during the first six months of the year.

In June, 16,000 tonnes of pepper were shipped abroad, earning US$127 million, bringing the total exports for the six months to 110,000 tonnes worth US$790 million.

Meanwhile, the country exported 109,000 tonnes of coffee in June, fetching US$229 million, raising sixtotal -month exports to 1.04 million tonnes worth US$2.12 billion (up 31.7% in volume and 24.7% in value).

Seafood brightened up exports with a value of US$3.45 billion in six months, including US$536 million in June (up 24.2%).

Products witnessing a sharp decline were rubber (down 33% in value and 11.7% in volume), cassava (down 12.8% in value and 13% in volume) and rice (8% in value and 9.9% in volume).

Only 3.2 million tonnes of rice were sent abroad in the first half of this year, yielding approximately US$1.44 billion.