Agricultural exports increase by 12 per cent in first eight months   Coffee is processed in the Central Highland province of Gia Lai's Chu P Rong District. The country's revenue from farming, forestry and seafood exports reached US$20.22 billion in the first eight months of the year. - VNA/VNS Photo Sy Huynh HA NOI (VNS) - Viet Nam has generated US$20.22 billion in revenue from its farming, forestry and seafood exports in the first eight months of 2014. This represents an 11.9 per cent increase from that of the same period last year, with exports in August accounting for $2.47 billion, according to a Vietnam Economics Times newspaper report quoting figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The figures also revealed a year-on-year increase in the value of exports from the farming sector by 5.7 per cent, to $11.4 billion. The same was true for the fishing sector, which registered a 25.4 per cent year-on-year increase to $4.95 billion, and the forestry sector, which posted a 12.7 per cent year-on-year increase to $3.87 billion. Ministry officials revealed that in the first eight months of the year, the average export price of Vietnamese rice rose by 3.1 per cent to $452.3 per tonne compared with that of the same period last year. But the average export volume of rice fell by nine per cent to 4.44 million tonnes, and the average export value of the commodity likewise fell by 5.3 per cent to $2.01 billion. During the period, Viet Nam experienced a sudden increase, estimated to be 2.8 times more in both volume and value, in its rice exports to the Philippines, making the latter its second largest export market at 23 per cent of total export volume. China is still the largest export market for Vietnamese rice, accounting for 36.18 per cent of total export volume in the first eight months of the year. Ministry officials revealed that rice exports passing through the border to China slowed down in the past two months after the latter tightened its restrictions on rice imports, thereby sparking an increase in the price of the country's rice exports. The Viet Nam Food Association said rice exports to China via large contracts were ongoing since the early part of this year and were expected to reach a total of 1.1 million tonnes. The association predicted the national export volume of rice to reach 1.9 million tonnes in the third quarter, 1.4 million tonnes in the last quarter and 6.3 million tonnes for the entire year, as a result of the high demand for rice exports in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. The ministry reported that coffee exports in the first eight months gained a year-on-year increase of 26.8 per cent in volume to 1.22 million tonnes and 22.3 per cent in value to $2.53 billion. But the export volume represented only half of that in May, and this was attributed to a low supply of coffee from farmers and enterprises since April. Meanwhile, exports of cashew achieved a year-on-year surge of 13.9 per cent in volume to 188,000 tonnes and 15 per cent in value to $1.22 billion. The US, China and Netherlands remained the three largest cashew export markets for Viet Nam. In the first eight months, pepper exports also jumped by 23.9 per cent in volume to 126,000 tonnes and 38.2 per cent in value to $926 million compared with that of the same period of last year. The four largest export markets for Vietnamese pepper are the US, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and India, accounting for 45.73 per cent of total export value. The exports of seafood products reached $4.95 billion in the first eight months, or 25.4 per cent more than that of the same period of last year. The US remained the largest export market for seafood products, with a total export value at $973.8 million, a 38.6 per cent year-on-year increase. Other large seafood export markets such as Japan, South Korea and China also saw an increase in value for the first eight months, the ministry said. - VNS