FINANCE

Spanish firms obtaining more loans from overseas investors

Bailout and financial reform unable to revive domestic credit sector as foreign funds fill gap

Successive financial reforms, a European bailout and the recapitalization of Spain's banks have all failed to reanimate the credit sector of Spain's economy. But recent figures issued by the Bank of Spain show that the number of loans to the country from overseas are higher than at the outset of the crisis.

One of every three euros loaned to Spanish companies originates from abroad, according to the figures released for October. When the economic meltdown started in 2008, Spanish banks accounted for 76.2 percent of all loans to domestic firms; five and a half years later, financing from overseas has risen to 33.2 percent, a record figure in the bank's historical series.

International credit lines to non-financial Spanish entities stand at 331 billion euros, according to the Bank of Spain, more than four billion euros up on the figure at the end of 2012.