Friday, 21/06/2013 17:24 (GMT+7)
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Photo for illustration (Source: VNA) |
With more than 100 plants to process cassava starch meeting the current strict conditions, if Vietnam expands exports to European countries and the US, the target of achieving cassava export turnover of USD2 million per year is possible in the near future, said Mr. Nguyen Van Lang, Chairman of the Vietnam Cassava Association (VCA).
Statistics from VCA show that Vietnam’s cassava plantation areas now cover 560,000 hectares, with a total output of nearly 9.4 million tonnes. As planned, the total output is used as materials for five ethanol production plants to make biological petrol to meet domestic consumption demand.
However, the difficult economic situation has left ethanol production plants not operating, thus, manioc starch is mainly exported to Asian markets, such as China, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan.
According to the plan for biological ethanol material development, Vietnam needs 750 million litres of ethanol by 2014, equivalent to 4.2 million tonnes of fresh manioc, to supply domestic production and transport.
In 2012, Vietnam shipped more than 4.2 million tonnes of manioc and manioc products overseas, valued at USD1.35 billion, up 57 percent in volume and 41 percent in value year on year. Currently, Vietnam ranks second in manioc exports, only after Thailand./.