Spain hopes to raise up to 2.0 bln euros in spectrum sale

Spain hopes to raise up to 2.0 billion euros (2.7 billion dollars) and create 40,000 jobs by selling frequency space on the broadcast spectrum for mobile phones, the industry ministry said Monday.

The government is to sell a total of 310 Mhz on different bandwidths, it said in a statement.

“It is estimated that this will require an additional investment (on the part of telecoms operators) of 1.2 billion euros and generate the creation of 40,000 jobs,” the statement said.

Spain is fighting to revive its economy, Europe’s fifth-largest, without recourse to a bail out by international bodies such as the European Union and the International Fund, as Greece and Ireland had to do last year.

They are trying to convince nervous investors that its economy will grow enough to bring its massive public deficit under control without outside help.

The government has pushed through unpopular austerity measures, including higher sales taxes and cuts to public workers’ wages, to slash a public deficit that hit 11.1 percent of GDP in 2009.

That deficit is the third-highest in the eurozone after Greece and Ireland.

It has also announced plans to sell big stakes in the national lottery and the country’s main airport operator as it aims to bring the public deficit under the 3.0-percent European Union limit by 2013.