No need for Spain bailout right now - PM
2012-12-14 20:01
-
Walking in Spain
This guide features: detailed descriptions of 57 great walks; precise two-colour maps for every...
Was R205.95
Now R191.53
buy now
Madrid - Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insisted on
Friday that his country currently had no need of a bailout from the Eurozone to
fix its public finances.
Spain will seek help to ease its borrowing costs if
necessary, but "currently we do no need to and therefore we have not asked
for it", he told Cadena Ser radio.
Rajoy has for months been fending off speculation that
Spain will seek help from Eurozone emergency funds, which would trigger
supportive action by the European Central Bank.
"We will use this mechanism only if necessary for
the interests of the Spanish people," said Rajoy, interviewed on the
sidelines of a European Union summit in Brussels.
He spoke a day after European leaders approved a new
system of banking supervision for the Eurozone, a key move for Spain, the
bloc's fourth-biggest economy.
Spain has had to seek a Eurozone bailout for its banks,
ruined by financial turmoil in recent years, and speculation mounted that it
would have to seek aid when its borrowing costs surged to danger levels in
July.
But Rajoy has held off from making such a demand and
Spain has managed to complete its financing operations for 2012 without outside
help.
Figures released by Spain's central bank on Friday showed
that the level of debt owed by Spanish banks to the European Central Bank
decreased for a third month running in November, to €340.8bn.
This indicated that Spanish banks were finding it easier
to raise money on regular financial markets, a sign of recovering confidence in
the sector whose collapse has fuelled a bitter recession in Spain.
Other data from the Spanish central bank Friday showed
that Spain's public debt rose to a fresh record at 77.4% of gross domestic
product in September and was forecast to reach at least 85.3% by the end of
2012.
