JINAN - East China's Shandong province, the country's main agricultural region, saw an unusual decline in exports of farm produce in the first three quarters of 2015.

Exports were 4.3 percent lower than in the same period of 2014, falling to $11 billion, revealed customs authorities in the Shandong port city of Qingdao on Tuesday.

The fall was attributed to weak demand in its traditional export markets of Japan, the Republic of Korea and Europe. However, exports to the United States, the ASEAN and Latin American countries grew.

The data picked up from the second quarter thanks to an increase in vegetable and peanut exports, said Hu Zhihua, an official dealing in import-export at Shandong's provincial department of agriculture.

Garlic accounted for 40 percent of the province's vegetable exports in terms of value in the first three quarters and was the main driver for vegetables exports rising 6.9 percent year on year in the same period, according to Hu.

He predicted the situation would improve in the last quarter of the year and that Shandong would maintain its position as the top exporter of farm produce.

It has been China's biggest exporter of agricultural produce for 16 consecutive years, typically accounting for a quarter of the country's total.