Vietnam's export volume of cashew nuts between January and June gained a year-on-year rise of 19 percent, but their value decreased 2.4 percent due to lower world prices.

Vietnam exported 54,000 tons of cashew nuts worth 217 million U. S. dollars, mainly to the United States, Japan, China, Australia, the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy and the Netherlands, in the first half of this year, according to the Vietnamese General Statistics Office on Tuesday.

Vietnam, which had 350,000 hectares of cashew trees in 2005, plans to increase the cashew acreage to 450,000 hectares and export revenue of 700 million dollars by 2010. It sold overseas 103,000 tons of nuts totaling 486 million dollars in 2005, the office said.

Source: Xinhua