HANOI, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is estimated to reap export revenues of over 43.3 billion U.S. dollars in the first eight months of this year, seeing a year-on-year surge of 39.1 percent, according to the country's General Statistics Office on Monday.

    Export items with the highest value growths between January and August include precious stones and metals with 548.8 percent, cooking oil with 174.7 percent, crude oil with 53.3 percent, coal with 52.8 percent, and cashew nuts with 49.6 percent.

    Last month, the country's Ministry of Industry and Trade asked business associations and enterprises nationwide to fully tap their production and export capacity to realize a target of gaining total export turnovers of 61.2 billion dollars in 2008, up26 percent against 2007.

    To this end, they are centering on improving quality of traditional export products, expanding production scale of items with high export revenues and growth, and those using larger volumes of domestically-produced materials. They are also intensifying trade promotion and market expansion.

    Vietnam is set to make import turnovers of nearly 59.3 billion dollars in the first eight months of this year, up 54.1 percent over the same period last year, said the statistics office.