HANOI, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam gained 256 million U.S. dollars from exporting 689,00 tons of cassava and cassava-based products in the first quarter of this year, down 22.8 percent in volume and 10.4 percent in value against the same period last year, according to the Vietnam Cassava Association on Friday.

In March alone, the country shipped abroad some 280,000 tons of cassava and cassava-based products worth 104 million U.S. dollars, down 12.5 percent in volume and 5.9 percent in value on-year.

Between January and March, China remained the largest importer of Vietnamese cassava, accounting for nearly 90 percent of the total volume, followed by South Korea and the ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), said the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Vietnam exported more than 2.4 million tons of cassava and cassava-based products worth 972 million U.S. dollars in 2018, seeing respective year-on-year decrease of 37.5 percent and 5.8 percent, mainly to China, South Korean, Malaysia and the Philippines, according to its General Statistics Office.