ANKARA: A $6 billion decline in Turkish Central Bank net reserves to $22.45 billion last week was in part due to payments for energy imports, traders said on Thursday.

The sharp slide was in line with bankers’ calculations earlier this week and meant net reserves have fallen some $17.5 billion since late December, when they hit their highest level in nearly four years.

“Energy import payments, the net effect of Treasury Eurobond transactions and exits from KKM (forex-protected deposit accounts) were decisive,” in the decline, said one senior banking source who declined to be named.

Traders said they calculated that net foreign exchange sales last week amounted to $4.3 billion but that only half of this amount could be explained by routine forex sales transactions, suggesting most of the remaining $2 billion was paid for energy imports.

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The central bank did not comment on the issue when asked by Reuters.

Before slipping this year, reserves had rebounded since early June - just after presidential and parliamentary elections - when they were down to minus $5.7 billion, their lowest since data publication began in 2002.