The country raked in US$6.5 billion from exports of main agricultural products, US$2.4 billion from seafood and US$2.7 billion from main forestry products, up 11.9%, 13% and 7.9% from the same time last year, respectively.
During the period, the country shipped 2.16 million tonnes of rice abroad, earning US$1.1 billion, year-on-year increases of 21.7% in volume and 37.7% in value.
Average export price for rice in the first quarter of this year gained 15% to reach US$501 per tonne. China continued to be the largest importer of Vietnamese rice when it purchased 411,600 tonnes, or 29.1% of the rice market share.
In the January-April period, cashew exports experienced sound expansion in terms of both volume and value. Some 103,000 tonnes of cashew were shipped abroad at a value of US$1.04 billion, rising 23.1% in quantity and 31.9% in value from the same time last year.
The US, China and the Netherlands remained three top importers of Vietnamese cashew. They made up of 34.4%, 13.6% and 13.3% of the market share, respectively.
The export value of vegetable went up nearly 30% to over US$1.32 billion in the period.
Earnings from coffee regained a slight rise of 0.4% to US$1.3 billion despite an 18.1% increase in volume with 691,000 tonnes. Meanwhile, the export value of cassava went up 3.2% to US$376 million in the period.
In a stark contrast, rubber and pepper saw their export values down of 21.4% and 33.2%, respectively.
The ministry estimated that the country splashed out US$9.5 billion on purchasing foreign agro-forestry-fishery products in the four-month period, growing 11.7% from the same months in 2017.
