According to the preliminary statistics figures from the General Department of Customs, Vietnam’s exports of vegetables and fruits in April of 2019 reached 466.65 million USD, an increase of 28 per cent compared to March of 2019.

The figure brought the total exports of vegetables and fruits in the first 4 months of 2019 to 1.4 billion USD, up by 7 per cent compared to the same period of 2018.

Vietnam exported fruits and vegetables mostly to the Chinese market, which accounted for 73.72 per cent of the total, with over 1 billion USD in turnover, up by 4.94 per cent over the same period last year. In April of 2019, the country’s exportd 364 million USD worth of fruits and vegetables to China, an increase of 43.81 per cent compared to March of 2019 and an increase of 38.55 per cent compared to April of 2018.

The US ranked second, accounted for 3.2 per cent of the total with 45.5 million USD in turnover, up by 17.27 per cent over the same period last year. In April of 2019, the country’s exports of fruits and vegetables to the U.S reached 13.79 million USD, up by 12,32 per cent compared to the previous month and by 38.39 per cent compared to April of 2018.

The next was the Korean and Japanese market with the export turnover of 43.6 million USD and 36.58 million USD, respectively.

Notably, several markets such as Italy, Indonesia, Laos were not our traditional markets, but they have increased the imports of fruits and vegetables from Vietnam in the period. The country’s exports of fruits and vegetables to Italy increased by more than 5 times (equivalent to 406.64 per cent) to 4.5 million USD. In April alone, the country’s exports of fruits and vegetables to Italy reached over 1 million USD, increased by 10.52 per cent compared with March of 2019 and by 3.9 times (or 292.05 per cent) ) compared with April of 2018. Indonesia was the second largest market with the increase of 4 times (or 300.76 per cent) with turnover of over 1 million USD, though in April 2019, the export turnover decreased by 71.67 per cent to only 185,500 USD.

In addition to the above two markets, the export to Laos also increased significantly by more than 2 times (or 116.69 per cent), to 6.6 million USD.

Meanwhile, the country’s exports of fruits and vegetables to Malaysia dropped strongly by 41.51 per cent to only 11.23 million USD. In April of 2019 the country’s exports of fruits and vegetables to Malaysia reached 2.81 million USD, down by 3.68 per cent compared to March of 2019 and down by 39,63 per cent compared with April of 2018.

In the first 4 months of this year the country started to export fruits and vegetables to several other markets such as Norway, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland in which the exports to Egypt reached the highest of 6.1 million USD; and the exports to Saudi Arabia reached US $ 5.2 million.