HANOI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam earned nearly 1.4 billion U.S. dollars from exporting fruits and vegetables in the first four months of this year, up 5.5 percent on-year, with China being the largest importer, the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said on Monday.

Other big export markets of Vietnamese fruits and vegetables included South Korea, the United States and Japan. Vietnam is striving to gain 4.2 billion U.S. dollars from selling fruits and veggies offshore this year, said the ministry.

In the four-month period, Vietnam spent 649 million U.S. dollars importing fruits and vegetables, surging 42.4 percent on-year, with Thailand and China being the two largest suppliers.

Vietnam made fruit and veggie export turnovers of nearly 3.4 billion U.S. dollars and spent over 1.7 billion U.S. dollars importing the products in 2018, up 9.2 percent and 12.3 percent against 2017 respectively, said its General Statistics Office.