Vietnam is estimated to earn some 400 million U.S. dollars from exporting cashew nuts this year, down from 486 million dollars last year, according to the Vietnam Cashew Association Monday.

The potential decline is partly attributed to the world's weaker purchasing power for cashew nuts and low quality of most of Vietnamese nuts. Poor application of scientific and technical advancements in growing cashew trees and processing cashew nuts results in uneven quality of the nuts. As a result, some foreign customers turn to imports from India.

Vietnam exported 79,000 tons of cashew nuts worth 317 million dollars, mainly to China, the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, England and Russia, in the first eight months of this year, up 21.2 percent in volume and 1.4 percent in value, the association said.

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 shipped abroad 103,000 tons of nuts valued at 486 million dollars in 2005, said the association.

Source: Xinhua