President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s government is raising taxes on credit card purchases abroad in a bid to stem the drop in Argentina’s international reserves to their lowest levels since December 2006.

The government raised the tax charged on credit card purchases in foreign currency to 35 percent from 20 percent, according to a resolution published today in the Official Gazette.

Argentina’s dollar reserves have plunged 29 percent this year to $30.9 billion as the government uses the funds to pay international debt and import energy, while Argentines take advantage of a strong official rate for the peso to spend abroad. The tax increase raises the implicit exchange rate on foreign purchases to 8.3 pesos to the dollar from 7.4. The official rate is 6.2 pesos, while the black market rate is 9.2.

“There’s been a drain of foreign currency due to tourism and we need to be very careful in order to guarantee the inflow of medium-level and basic goods,” Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich told reporters today.