Cambodia is the largest supplier of cashew nuts to Vietnam with an output of more than 797,000 tons, turnover reaching more than 1 billion USD, a sharp increase of 32% in volume and 25% in value over the same period in 2023. According to statistics from the General Department of Customs, Vietnam's cashew nut imports in August reached more than 211,000 tons with a value of more than 283 million USD, down 27.5% in volume and 18.2% in value compared to the previous month. In the first 8 months of the year, our country imported more than 1.9 million tons of cashew nuts, with a turnover of more than 2.4 billion USD, down 4.1% in volume and 2.2% in value compared to the same period in 2023.
n terms of market, Cambodia is the largest supplier of cashew nuts to Vietnam with an output of more than 797,000 tons, turnover reaching more than 1 billion USD, a sharp increase of 32% in volume and 25% in value compared to the same period in 2023. The average import price reached 1,292 USD/ton, down 5% over the same period. Ranked second among cashew suppliers for Vietnam is Ivory Coast. By the end of August, our country imported more than 394,000 tons from this market with a value of more than 459 million USD, however, it decreased by 30% in volume and 27% in value compared to the same period last year. Ghana is the third largest supplier to Vietnam with more than 236,000 tons, worth more than 266 million USD, up 10% in volume and 13% in value. The average import price reached 1,096 USD/ton, up 3%.
Cambodia's cashew industry has grown rapidly in recent years and has become the largest supplier to Vietnam. Cambodia currently ha s 435,733 hectares of cashew plantations with an output of 508,283 tons by 2022. Also in 2022, Cambodia exported 471,520 tons of raw cashew nuts and earned more than 1.07 billion USD. Of which, up to 98.5% of Cambodia's cashew exports were sold to Vietnam.
Cambodia's cashew crop this year is higher than last year, but about 70% of it is large-sized nuts, so Vietnamese businesses are lacking small-sized commercial cashew nuts to meet the needs of many importers. According to the Import-Export Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade), in August, Vietnam's cashew nut export price reached an average of 6,326 USD/ton, up 2.6% compared to July 2024 and up 14.8% compared to August 2023. Thus, this is the 4th consecutive month that Vietnam's cashew nut export price has increased compared to the previous month and the 3rd consecutive month that cashew nut export price has increased compared to the same period in 2023. Cashew export prices have been increasing continuously in recent months, but because in the first 5 months of the year, the average cashew export price was always lower than the same period in 2023, so in the first 8 months, the average cashew export price still decreased by 0.9% compared to the same period last year. In the first eight months, businesses exported 486,000 tons of cashew nuts, worth 2.77 billion USD, up 22.9% in volume and 21.8% in value over the same period last year.
According to some cashew traders, cashew exports will continue to grow steadily in the last months of the year due to import demand for holidays and Tet.
In addition to rice, Vietnam also imports cashews and coffee.
In the first 9 months of 2024, Vietnam imported rice worth about 1 billion USD. Besides rice, Vietnam also imported a large amount of other agricultural products such as cashews and coffee. Diversifying supply sources has helped businesses meet the increasing demand of the export market.
According to a rice exporting enterprise, importing rice from Cambodia is to help enterprises proactively source inputs for export contracts while they have not been able to buy or encounter problems arising in the process of buying rice from farmers in the Mekong Delta provinces. Photo: Trung Chanh
According to the General Department of Customs, in the first 9 months of 2024, Vietnam exported more than 7 million tons of rice, equivalent to 4.37 billion USD, but also spent about 996 million USD to import rice to meet domestic and export demand. This figure of nearly 1 billion USD is noteworthy because in 2023, the total import value was only 860 million USD, meaning that Vietnam is tending to import more rice every year.
This trend is somewhat similar to other commodities such as cashews. In 2006, Vietnam surpassed India to become the world's number one cashew exporter. And to maintain this position, the cashew industry must import a quantity of raw cashews each year for processing.
According to the General Statistics Office, in 2023, Vietnam exported 644,120 tons of cashew nuts, worth 3.64 billion USD, and imported 2.75 million tons of raw cashew nuts, up 45.7%, with a value of 3.17 billion USD, up nearly 19%. In the first 7 months of 2024, Vietnam's cashew nut export turnover reached 424,000 tons, worth 2.37 billion USD, up 26.4% in volume and 22% in value over the same period in 2023. Along with that, Vietnam spent 2.2 billion USD to import over 1.8 million tons of raw cashew nuts to serve export production and part of domestic consumption, up 6% in volume and 3.3% in value.
Coffee is also in this trend, according to the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (VICOFA), in the 2022-2023 crop year, Vietnam imported 102,100 tons of coffee with a value of 300 million USD, an increase of more than 14% in volume and 9% in value compared to the 2021-2022 crop year. In the 2022-2023 crop year, the amount of coffee imported into Vietnam was 98,600 tons, equivalent to 246 million USD, an increase of 19% in volume and 23% in value compared to the 2021-2022 crop year. These data show that Vietnam has an increasing trend of importing coffee.
According to VICOFA, for many years now, not only coffee but also other agricultural products such as cashew nuts and rice have been processed for export.
For coffee, businesses tend to import more from Laos, while Vietnam imports more raw cashews and rice from Cambodia. In the latest report of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the agricultural market, it is forecasted that in 2024, Vietnam's rice export volume will be from 8.3 to 8.6 million tons. Along with that, Vietnam must import an amount of rice from Cambodia ranging from 2.6 to 2.9 million tons, exactly equal to the amount of rice that this country exported in 2024. According to USDA, if the Philippines and Indonesia are among Vietnam's largest rice export markets, Cambodia is Vietnam's largest rice import market.
Previously, the leaders of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, when meeting with the press, also received questions about why Vietnam, a country with strengths in agricultural production and export, still imports these products. The ministry then replied that this is an inevitable trend in global trade, especially when Vietnam has a strong output market and a better logistics system than other countries in the region, so businesses diversify their supply sources to meet export demand. Therefore, businesses importing agricultural products from markets, especially neighboring markets, is a normal trend in trade.