Agricultural sector posts trade surplus of 1 billion USD in 2 months

Hanoi (VNA) – The agricultural sector posted a trade surplus of 1 billion USD in the January-February period despite a year-on-year decrease of 1.6 percent in export value.

Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the sector earned 5.5 billion USD from the export of farm produce and forestry and aquatic products.

In the two months, the revenue of farm produce exports stood at 2.71 billion USD, a drop of 10.1 percent; while that of animal husbandry hit 77 million USD, down 7 percent.

Aquatic products brought home 1.11 billion USD, a rise of 4.4 percent, and forestry products, 1.5 billion USD, up 12.8 percent.

Meanwhile, 4.5 billion USD worth of agro-forestry-fishery products were imported in the reviewed period, up 3 percent from the same period last year.

In the first two months of this year, the country saw a trade deficit of 84 million USD.

Total export-import turnover hit 73.44 billion USD, a year-on-year rise of 6.7 percent, of which, export revenues increased 5.9 percent to 36.68 billion USD and import value rose 7.5 percent to 36.76 billion USD.