HANOI, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam spent 1.3 billion U.S. dollars importing animal feeds and materials for animal feed production in the first four months of this year, up 2.4 percent against the same period last year, according to the country's Ministry Agriculture and Rural Development on Thursday.

In April alone, Vietnam's imports of the products declined by 5.5 percent from March to 330 million U.S. dollars. Its largest suppliers included China, Cambodia, Malaysia and India.

Between January and April, Vietnam also imported 768,000 tons of wheat worth 221 million U.S. dollars, seeing respective year-on-year plunges of 54.4 percent and 45.9 percent; and spent 227 million U.S. dollars importing animal and vegetable oil, down 2.5 percent.

Last year, Vietnam spent nearly 3.9 billion U.S. dollars importing animal feeds and materials for animal feed production, with the biggest import market being Argentina with turnovers of nearly 1.3 billion U.S. dollars, followed by the United States (681.5 million U.S. dollars), Brazil (472 million U.S. dollars) and China (225.6 million U.S. dollars), according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs.