(MENAFN- AFP) Slovenia will need 4.778 billion euros ($6.58 billion) to recapitalise its troubled banks, central bank governor Bostjan Jazbec said Thursday, citing the results of EU-supervised stress tests.
The tests were to determine whether the crisis-hit country could shore up its banks on its own or become the latest eurozone member to need outside help.
Slovenia's three biggest state-owned banks alone will need 3.012 billion euros, Jazbec told a press conference.
"The recapitalisation of the three state-owned banks NLB, NKBM and Abanka will be carried immediately after the European Commission's authorisation," he added.
"After this recapitalisation, Slovenian banks will be the best capitalised in Europe."
Finance Minister Uros Cufer also gave details about a Slovenian "bad bank," that was created in 2012 but delayed until the independent audit was completed.
"The government adopted today a bill for the recapitalisation and also for the transfer of their toxic loans to a bad bank," he told journalists alongside Jazbec.
"The transaction value of the toxic loans will be 1.6 billion euros while the bad bank will receive 4.5 billion euros of toxic loans," he added.
Prior to Thursday's results, the government already announced it had set aside 4.7 billion euros for recapitalising the banks, which became weighed down by bad loans.
Slovenia, in recession since 2011 has been dogged for months by worries that it could become the sixth eurozone country to be forced to need outside aid.
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