Hanoi, Vietnam : Vietnam’s cashew nut exports in the first eight months of this year rose 24.9 percent year-on-year to 2.2 billion U.S. dollars, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Monday.

Specifically, Vietnam exported 223,000 tons of cashew nuts, down 1.1 percent, but with the product’s average price surging over the same period last year as well as over the whole 2016.

In August alone, about 35,000 tons of cashew nuts worth 351 million U.S. dollars were shipped abroad, reported the ministry.

The United States, the Netherlands and China continued to be the largest importers of Vietnamese cashew nuts, which consumed 36.7 percent, 15.6 percent and 11.7 percent of the country’s total export volume, respectively.

—NN-XINHUA