Of the figure, around 43.48 billion USD was worth of exports, up 14.2 percent while nearly 39.18 billion USD was from imports, up 39 percent, resulting in a trade surplus of roughly 4.3 billion USD, down 56.5 percent year-on-year.
With the result, the goal of earning 44 billion USD from agro-forestry-aquatic product exports is completely reachable.
Notably, rubber, cashew nuts, cassava and its products saw increase in both export volume and value.
The US was the biggest export market of Vietnam with over 11.9 billion USD, or 27.5 percent of the market share. It was followed by China with around 8.4 billion USD, accounting for 19.2 percent, and Japan with nearly 3 billion USD, or 6.9 percent.
The US was also the biggest import market of Vietnam with nearly 3.5 billion USD, making up 8.9 percent of the market share. Cambodia came second with around 3.3 billion USD, or 8.5 percent.
In the near future, the MARD will facilitate the export of farm produce to Peru, Australia, Brazil, China, the US, ASEAN and Russia while carrying out a project on improving the capacity of trade defence in the context of Vietnam’s entry to new-generation free trade agreements.