China stands ready to commit more money to help stabilise the eurozone by buying more bonds after investing billions of euros in the debt of Portugal and Greece, a senior Chinese official said on Thursday. Song Zhe, China's ambassador to the European Union, said China had bought eurozone bonds to diversity its "huge" foreign exchange reserves away from the dollar as well as to support Europe through the economic crisis.
Earlier on Thursday in Beijing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said China was in talks to invest in Spain, including in the reorganisation of troubled Spanish savings banks.
Those remarks confirmed earlier comments from Spain that Madrid and Beijing were discussing possible investments, although the two have never shed light on the size of any deals. Song cautioned over any restructuring of Greek debt, which could force losses on bondholders including China, saying: "We hope governments can ensure the security of our investments."
"The EU is China's most important business partner," said Song, adding that Beijing has an interest in helping "the stability of the European economy and early recovery from the crisis" as he reiterated his country's support for maintaining the euro. Outlining how China had already bought several billions of euros of Greek and Portuguese government debt, Song said: "This is still in the beginning phase. In the next step, it's possible we will purchase more."
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.