萨帕特罗在参观了上海世博会后在北京作了短暂停留。周二他在北京接受中国媒体集体采访时发表了上述言论。
据采访录音，萨帕特罗说，我们绝对希望中国能够继续增持西班牙国债，中国的确增持了西班牙国债，这实际上给市场注入了信心，我认为这是个明智的决定。
萨帕特罗没有详细说明。西班牙驻中国大使馆发言人说，7月份中国购买了四亿欧元的西班牙国债。
萨帕特罗周二晚些时候与中国国务院总理温家宝举行了会晤。会后，中国国有媒体援引温家宝的话报导，他希望两国能够携手促进双边贸易投资的增长。没有迹象表明中国已经承诺增加对西班牙国债的投资。
劝说中国增持西班牙国债看起来并非萨帕特罗此行的重点。萨帕特罗对此事的评论仅限于接受中国媒体采访时说的几句话。
今年早些时候，围绕希腊国债的信心危机可能扩散到西班牙。在西班牙，高额的政府借贷和疲弱的经济促使投资者重新评估放贷成本。
此后，西班牙采取措施大力削减支出，今年前七个月政府预算赤字几乎降到了2009年同期水平的一半。尽管如此，经济增长依然疲弱，二季度西班牙国内生产总值(GDP)环比仅增长了0.2%。2009年全年，西班牙GDP增长了3.7%。
萨帕特罗的话反映出，由于中国拥有巨额外汇储备，中国日益被全球公司和政治领导人视为资本来源。截至6月底，中国外汇储备总额为2.454万亿美元，遥居全球之首。中国持有的资产大部分投资于美国国债和美元资产，不过政府近年来努力将投资分散到其他货币和资产类别，企业和政府则争取利用这一点。
据知情人士透露，招商引资的外国公司经常与外管局和中投公司接洽投资事宜。中投公司成立于近三年前，更积极地管理着2,000亿美元的外汇储备。
今年早些时候，希腊政府与中国外汇储备管理机构进行接洽，希望其能够在希腊主权债务危机期间购买希腊国债。去年2月份，在希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)就任美国国务卿后的首次访华之行中，她赞扬了中国在美国担心如何为其计划的刺激支出埋单之际，持续买进美国国债。
Dinny McMahon / Jason Dean
Mr. Zapatero made the comments in a group interview with Chinese media Tuesday, during a brief stop in Beijing after visiting the World Expo in Shanghai.
'We definitely hope that China will continue to increase its holdings of Spanish government bonds,' he said, according to a recording of the interview. 'China has indeed increased its holdings of Spanish government bonds. This in fact has injected confidence to the market. I think it is a wise decision.'
Mr. Zapatero didn't elaborate. A spokesman at the Spanish embassy in Beijing said China bought 400 million euro of Spanish government bonds in July.
Mr. Zapatero held a meeting later Tuesday with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, after which Chinese state media cited Mr. Wen as saying he hoped the two countries could work together promote growth of trade and investment. There was no indication that China had committed to increasing its investment in Spanish debt.
The bond issue didn't appear to be the focus of Mr. Zapatero's visit. The prime minister's comments on the issue were limited to a few sentences during the interview with Chinese media.
Earlier this year the crisis of confidence in Greece's public debt threatened to spread to Spain, where high levels of government borrowing and a faltering economy prompted investors to reassess the cost of lending there.
Spain has moved to aggressively cut spending since then, with the government's budget deficit for the first seven months of the year almost half that of the same period in 2009. Still economic growth remains sluggish with the country's gross domestic product in the second quarter up only 0.2% from the previous quarter. It grew 3.7% for the whole of 2009.
Mr. Zapatero's statement reflects how China is increasingly seen as a source of capital by global corporate and political leaders, thanks to its massive pile of foreign currency reserves that is by far the largest in the world, totaling $2.454 trillion at the end of June. The majority of China's holdings are invested in Treasurys and other U.S. dollar assets, but the government has made efforts to diversify into other currencies and asset classes in recent years, and companies and governments have sought to take advantage of that.
The State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which manages the reserves, and China Investment Corp., the nearly three-year-old fund set up to manage a $200 billion chunk of the reserves more aggressively, are both constantly approached by foreign companies soliciting investments, according to people familiar with the funds.
Earlier this year, the Greek government approached the Chinese reserves managers about buying its bonds during that country's sovereign-debt crisis. And in February last year, during her first visit to China as U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton praised China for its ongoing purchases at a time the U.S. was concerned about how it would fund its planned stimulus spending.
Dinny McMahon / Jason Dean
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