(Bloomberg) -- Tunisia’s foreign-exchange reserves fell almost 13% in just a day as the cash-tight government continues to tap the central bank to fund its debt obligations.

Hard-currency holdings of Banque Centrale de Tunisie (BCT) dropped to 23.3 billion dinars ($7.3 billion) as of Wednesday from 26.7 billion dinars a day earlier, the bank’s data show. That means the north African nation now has enough reserves to cover 104 days of imports against 119 days earlier, the data show.

The drop was “expected” and is due to the repayment by Tunisia’s treasury of a $1 billion eurobond that matures Thursday, a BCT official told Bloomberg by telephone. Officials at the finance ministry and the presidency of the government did not immediately respond to requests for comments. 

The government has announced it would turn to BCT this year to help repay its external debt. Meanwhile, key export sectors such as manufacturing and phosphates are struggling to boost revenue amid political instability that followed a revolution in 2010. President Kais Saied last year rejected a proposal for a potential bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

READ: Tunisia Looks to Central Bank to Repay Debt as Economy Reels

Budget austerity and currency controls helped Tunisia bring down fiscal deficits in recent years and tame a rapid expansion in its external debt since 2011. Growth remains sluggish. The government’s increased reliance on domestic borrowings has squeezed out liquidity available for investment in the economy.

Still, the nation’s margins of maneuver remain tight and chances of a prompt economic recovery remain slim in the absence of a government push in that regard. The regulator, BCT, has urged banks to ration their dividend distribution, which implies a tighter noose on the outflows of foreign currency to the lenders’ parent companies.

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