Rise in exports, fruit of market diversification, Turkish economy minister says

ANKARA (A.A) - Turkey's economy minister has said his country's efforts for market diversification paid off in exports figures for January 2012. "The data shows that we are reaping the fruits of our policy of market diversification and access to new markets as exports in January this year soared 9.8 percent over the same period a year earlier," Zafer Caglayan said in a press release on Wednesday. Turkey's Exporters' Assembly has announced the country's exports reached 10.5 billion USD in the first month of 2012. Caglayan said year-end export volume could reach as high as 148.5 billion USD if the increase in overall exports continued the same pattern throughout the year.     Caglayan said exports to the European Union markets, which claim half of overall exports, were flat in the mentioned period whereas exports to newly accessed markets was up 20 percent.  Caglayan said EU's share in overall exports fell to 43.6 percent from 48.3 percent due to drop in demand in member countries.