Ethiopia earned 658.1 million U.S. dollars from its exports of coffee, spices and tea during the first seven months of its 2021/2022 fiscal year, up 52.4 percent from the same period a year earlier, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) reported Thursday.

Coffee exports represented the highest share of the revenues, reaching 162,818.04 tons and earning 645.10 million dollars, the ENA quoted Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority officials as saying.

Rises in coffee prices, productivity, and improved control system are among the major factors for the export achievements, according to the report.

Coffee is Ethiopia's leading export product, or the backbone of the country's economy. Ethiopia's traditional top five coffee export destinations were Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Belgium and the United States.

Yet, in recent years, the East African country has been working to explore the emerging coffee market in China.

Last month, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) highlighted Ethiopia's recent success in exporting coffee to China, saying it will provide a roadmap for the potential coffee exports of other African countries.

"Success recorded in exporting Ethiopian coffee to China will provide a roadmap in leveraging export potential for other ten African countries, where ECA (UNECA) is working this year, to provide more export potential from Africa to China," said Vera Songwe, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UNECA, in a UNECA statement.