GAZIANTEP, July 12. (A.A). Businessmen in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey have turned global economic crisis into an opportunity and raised the number of countries they are exporting to 172.
The Southeastern Anatolia Exporters' Associations (GAIB) was exporting to only 158 countries at the beginning of 2010, however raised this number to 172 in the first half of the year.
GAIB also raised its exports by 27.6 percent in the first half of 2010 and earned 2.2 billion USD from its exports.
Members of the association exported goods worth 394 million USD with 29.5 percent rise in June.
Gaziantep made 71.7 percent of the overall exports in the region.
Barbados, Benin, Bostwana, Brunei, Cape Verde, Djibouti, El Salvador, Eritrea, Gabon, Guyana, Haiti, Congo, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mauritania, Nepal, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago and Zambia are some of the countries GAIB members are exporting to.
Middle East topped the regions where GAIB is exporting its products, whereas the European Union (EU) zone came the second and African countries the third.
"We will easily reach 5-5.6 billion USD of exports by the end of this year," Abdulkadir Cikmaz, the chairman of the GAIB, told AA correspondent.
Cikmaz said growth would have an impact on employment gradually, and forecast that Turkey would economically develop more and more if Turkey reaches 6-6.5 percent growth rate by the end of 2010.
