HANOI, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's export turnovers of key agricultural products including coffee, rice, cashew nuts and pepper plunged in the first four months of this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said on Tuesday.

The country gained nearly 1.1 billion U.S. dollars from exporting 629,000 tons of coffee in the four-month period, plunging 22.6 percent in value and 13.5 percent in volume on-year.

Vietnam also raked in 866 million U.S. dollars from selling offshore over 2 million tons of rice, posting a respective decline of 21.7 percent and 7.9 percent.

The export turnovers of cashew nuts fell by 16.9 percent on-year to 884 million U.S. dollars while those of pepper decreased by 12 percent to 270 million U.S. dollars.

In 2019, Vietnam targets to expand its agricultural product export to over 43 billion U.S. dollars, up from 40 billion U.S. dollars last year. The country was striving to become one of the world top 15 farming powerhouses in the next 10 years, the government said in January.