The head of the International Monetary Fund is in Spain to meet the government over its finances.

There are persistent rumours the Spanish government is planning to follow Greece in seeking a bail-out from the IMF and the EU.

Spain's prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, denied the speculation again on Thursday.

He said Spain's economy was solid and solvent, and the visit by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a scheduled one.

His government has just introduced a package of spending cuts and a reform of the labour market in an attempt to persuade nervous financial markets that Spain's finances are under control.
Nervous markets

That's a difficult task.

This meeting between Mr Zapatero and Mr Strauss-Kahn was scheduled before rumours of an imminent bail-out for Spain began to circulate.

So both the government here, and the IMF, insist it doesn't mean Spain's seeking access to a multi-billion euro credit line for its struggling economy.

But after the crisis with Greece the financial markets are nervous.

That means Spain is having to pay record rates to sell its debt now and this week a senior banker revealed that Spanish financial institutions are struggling to get funding on international markets.

So Spain has now promised to publish the results of what are known as "stress tests" on its banks, to prove that any fears of their failure, are unfounded.

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