China supports Spain's economic reforms and will continue buying Spanish government debt, Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang wrote in a newspaper editorial, the latest sign of China's growing role in protecting the stability of the European Union, its largest export market, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spain has faced increasing difficulties in financing a yawning budget deficit after Greece's financial meltdown in early 2010 sparked concerns about the problems of other fiscally frail euro-zone countries.

Spain said that its regional governments are on track to meet their budget targets this year, its latest effort to quell investor fears that it could be the next European country to need a financial bailout, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Facing intense market pressure, Spain for the first time opened its regions' books before year-end in a bid to address investor worries that the regions' deteriorating accounts could derail the government's austerity drive.

Many smaller Spanish companies are fighting for survival amid the country's biggest economic slump in decades, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Spain is also at the heart of a sovereign-debt crisis in Europe, which has been boiling over in recent weeks. Financial markets fear Spain will follow Greece and Ireland and eventually need a bailout, but a bailout for the larger Spanish economy is the worst-case scenario for markets that fear it could destabilize the euro zone.

For months, Spain's residential mortgage sector has performed an impressive feat: Despite tumbling home prices and sky-high unemployment, just a small portion of mortgage borrowers have fallen behind on their payments. Now, some analysts and economists are wondering if Spain is in for a wave of defaults in coming months amid further job cuts meant to address the country's broader economic problems, The Wall Street Journal reported.

With markets increasing pressure on Spain, Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is running out of the political capital necessary to force through difficult reforms that could ease investor concerns, The Wall Street Journal reported. in the wake of Ireland's €67.5 billion ($88.7 billion) bailout, sovereign-debt concerns have risen in Spain and Portugal. Pressure is building on Mr.

Spain faces a problem as empty homes left over from the housing boom go up for sale: determining just how much the properties are worth, The Wall Street Journal reported. Analysts, property-sales representatives and economists said data coming from the government and even some large appraisal companies understate the drop in real-estate prices. That is causing confusion and scaring off some investors who could help banks clear their backlog of homes. The discrepancies are owed, in part, to a quirk in how some Spanish home-price data are calculated.

Spanish officials are mounting an aggressive campaign to dismiss fears that Europe's fiscal woes—which have already leapt from Greece to Ireland and may soon spread to Portugal—will reach their shores, The Wall Street Journal reported. This week, Spanish officials hastened to throw up a firewall around their country with a volley of positive comments about the progress of Spain's fiscal reforms and the soundness of its banking sector. The message they are emphasizing: Spain is not Ireland, which is on track for an estimated €80 billion ($109 billion) international bailout.

Spain's timid economic recovery stalled in the third quarter as the result of government austerity measures, but should soon pick up again, the Bank of Spain said Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Spanish central bank estimated in its monthly economic report that third-quarter gross domestic product was unchanged from the second quarter. Spanish GDP rose 0.2% in the second quarter and 0.1% in the first after six consecutive quarters of contraction. In annual terms, third-quarter GDP rose 0.2%, its first annual increase in eight quarters, the central bank said.

Spanish jobless claims continued to spiral higher in October, highlighting a weak recovery for an economy suffering from the collapse of a decade-long construction boom and government efforts to slash a towering budget deficit, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Spanish Labor Ministry said Wednesday that registered jobless claims rose by 68,213, or 1.7%, to nearly 4.09 million in October from September. The ministry doesn't provide unemployment rates. The Spanish Statistics Institute said last week that the average jobless rate was 19.8% in the third quarter.

For many Spaniards, no longer able to pay their mortgages, the fine print in the deals they agreed to years ago is catching up with them, the International Herald Tribune reported. Not only are Spanish mortgage holders personally liable for the full amount of the loan, but throw in penalty interest charges and tens of thousands of dollars in court fees, and people can end up facing a mountain of debt. Bankruptcy is not the answer, either. Mortgage debt is specifically excluded here.