Madrid: The United Arab Emirates will invest €150 million (Dh761.28 million) in a Spanish savings bank, a Spanish government spokesman said yesterday, the second Middle Eastern country to back Spain's regional banks.
The government official, did not name the bank. The Spanish savings bank association, Ceca, declined to comment.
Qatar said on Monday it would invest €300 million in Spanish banks, during the visit of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to Doha.
Zapatero is visiting Tunisia, Qatar and the UAE as part of a Middle East tour.
The Spanish government is trying to attract private capital for its regional banks to plug a funding gap that the government has estimated at €20 billion, caused by over-zealous lending during a property boom which turned to bust during the global real estate collapse.
Moody's on Monday raised its estimate for the funding shortfall to €50 billion from an earlier estimate of €17 billion, and indicated that losses would be mostly concentrated in the savings banks.
