HANOI, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam imported 140,000 tons of cotton worth 244 million U.S. dollars in January, up 49.7 percent in volume and 51.1 percent in value against January 2017, according to its Ministry of Industry and Trade on Friday.

Vietnam, whose yarn industry heavily depends on imported cotton, has imported increasingly bigger volumes of the material in recent years to feed its growing textile and garment production and export, local economists said, noting that its biggest cotton import market is the United States, tailed by India, Australia, Brazil and Cote d'Ivoire.

Vietnam's cotton import surged from 150,000 tons in 2005 to nearly 1.3 million tons in 2017. Last year, the country spent over 2.3 billion U.S. dollars importing cotton, posting a year-on-year rise of 41.2 percent.

Vietnam reaped 2.3 billion U.S. dollars from exporting garments and textiles in January, up 7.6 percent on-year, mainly to the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea.

The country's garment and textile export turnovers were over 25.9 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 8.8 percent, said the ministry.