KARACHI, Dec 9: Pakistan's total liquid foreign exchange reserves fell to $11.711 billion on December 4 from $11.987 billion on November 27, showing a big decline of $276 million within a week.

Data released by the State Bank reveal that on December 4, the reserves held by the central bank declined to $9.056 billion from $9.348 billion on November 20. But the reserves held by the banking system rather moved up to $2.655 billion from $2.639 billion.

Sources close to the SBP said that the central bank's reserves witnessed a huge fall of $292 million during the week ended on December 4 chiefly because of a huge government debt payment of around 150 million euros. They said the reserves also fell due to SBP's dollar selling to the banks for making oil import payments.

The SBP started dollar selling for oil imports since November 1 to ease off the pressure on the rupee that had lost 5.5 per cent value in July-October 2004 when trade deficit had rose four-fold to $1.432 billion, partly due to increase in oil prices.

But as the deficit shot up to 2.5bn in July-November, it took its toll on foreign exchange reserves that fell to $11.987bn on November 27 from $12.253m at end-October. The rupee, however, gained 2.7 per cent value in November rising to 59.70 a US dollar at the end of last month from 61.37 at end-October.