Vietnam gained over 1.3 billion U.S. dollars from exporting seafood in the first five months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 21.9 percent, newspaper Vietnam News reported Wednesday.

In May alone, the country has eyed seafood export of 320 million dollars. The higher export revenues are attributed to the rising demand of the markets such as French, Japan, South Korean, China's Taiwan and Australia, according to Vietnam's Ministry of Fisheries.

Vietnam has shipped some 316,000 tons of seafood in the first five months, including frozen shrimp, catfish and octopus.

The country has eyed seafood export revenues of 3.6 billion dollars this year, up 7.1 percent against last year, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers. Its seafood exports to the European Union (EU) is expected to surge 49 percent to 1.5 billion dollars in 2007.

Vietnam has set targets of annual seafood export growth of over 9 percent in the 2006-2010 period, and export revenues of 4-4.5 billion dollars in 2010.