diff --git a/src/eoatex2imxml.py b/src/eoatex2imxml.py
index 0b42d3b..6b78a57 100755
--- a/src/eoatex2imxml.py
+++ b/src/eoatex2imxml.py
@@ -1053,6 +1053,7 @@ def process_references(xmlTree):
 
     eoarefs = xmlTree.xpath("//EOAref")
     for ref in eoarefs:
+        ref.set("type", "number")
         ref_element = ref.find("./ref")
         target_attribute = ref.xpath("./ref/@target")
         ref_label = ref.find("./Label").text