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ANKARA, May 1 (Reuters) - Turkish exports fell 33.75 percent year-on-year in April to $7.52 billion, the Turkish Exporters Association (TIM) said on Friday, underlining a trend of steep contraction in the economy this year.
The TIM figures come almost a month before official data, which they tend to match. Official data showed on Thursday exports fell 28.4 percent in March to $8.18 billion, showing a sharp reduction in demand from key European markets.
Automotive exports, which constitute nearly 17 percent of total exports, fell 50.69 percent in March from a year earlier. The figures showed exports in the first 4 months fell 33.21 percent year-on-year to $28.51 billion.
The figures showed Turkey's exports fell 3.37 percent to $113.35 billion in the last 12 months.
The International Monetary Fund expects Turkey's economy to shrink 5.1 percent this year, after posting growth of 1.1 percent in 2008. (Reporting by Selcuk Gokoluk; editing by Chris Pizzey)