Cashews being processed for export in the southern province of Binh Phuoc. The cashew industry has achieved a year-on-year increase of 17 per cent in export volume of 238,000 tonnes of cashews and 10.1 per cent increase in value to $1.48 billion.— VNA/VNS Photo Dinh Hue

HA NOI (Biz Hub)— The cashew industry, during the first 11 months of 2013, reached its yearly target of US$1.5 billion in exports, according to the Ministry and Agriculture and Rural Development.

According to officials, during the first 11 months of 2013 the industry achieved a year-on-year increase of 17 per cent in export volume of 238,000 tonnes of cashews and 10.1 per cent increase in value to $1.48 billion.

Recently, the Viet Nam Cashew Association increased its forecast for the export value of cashews from $1.5 billion to $1.7-1.8 billion for this year.

Nguyen Duc Thanh, the association chairman, said the industry has achieved great export results and, in November, many businesses signed export contracts to be fulfilled during the first half of 2014 with export prices up 5 per cent compared to last month.

Viet Nam has been the largest cashew exporters since 2009, with 300 exporters to export cashew products to 100 countries and territories throughout the world.

The three largest export markets for Vietnamese cashews include the US, China and the Netherlands, accounting for 33.2 per cent, 17.2 per cent and 9.9 per cent of total cashew exports, respectively.

To gain positive growth in exports during the past months, even while there are difficulties on world markets, businesses have focused on traditional export markets, such as the US, European countries, China and Australia, and also expanded export markets to the Middle East, Northern Asian and ASEAN countries.

Thanh said that in the past one to two years, Viet Nam processed 1 million tonnes of raw cashews per year, including 600,000 tonnes from domestic crops and imports of 400,000 tonnes from Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and Western African countries.

To make up for the lack of raw cashews, the industry has promoted the use of modern technology for processing export products to increase added value for cashews, Thanh said.

At the international customer conference in HCM City at the end of November, the association signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ivory Coast Cashew Exporters Association (AEC-CI), Benin Cashew Exporters Council (CoNEC Benin) and Nigerian Cashew Association (NCAN), to receive raw cashews for export processing.

According to the association, many raw cashew exporters in Africa, such as the Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau and Nigeria, have called upon Vietnamese cashew export processors to invest in cashew processing technologies in those countries.

The countries have had tax exemptions and given priorities to the price of buying raw materials for businesses that put technological investments into processing cashews within those countries.

Meanwhile, some Vietnamese enterprises have transferred equipment and technology to businesses in those countries. — VNS