Ireland says EU treaty rejection would damage investment

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Countries keen on investing in Ireland and aiding its economic recovery would quickly lose interest if voters rejected a referendum on the European Union's new fiscal treaty, finance minister Michael Noonan warned on Saturday.

Ireland will hold what will probably be the only popular vote over German-led plans for stricter budget discipline on May 31 and the government is putting the country's economy and long-term stability at the front of its campaign.

Early opinion polls give supporters of the fiscal compact a clear lead but Noonan said a swing to the 'no' side would see countries like China, whose interest in Ireland has recently picked up, look elsewhere.

"This Treaty is a continuation of the confidence building in Ireland," Noonan said in a speech at senior governing party Fine Gael's national conference.

"We only need to look at the Taoiseach's (prime minister) successful visit to China earlier this week to see other countries want to invest in Ireland. If we were not so fully involved in the eurozone, they would not be interested."

A subsidiary of China's sovereign wealth fund on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with Dublin's debt agency to explore investment opportunities in Ireland, but gave little detail on what it might be interested in.

Analysts said the $410 billion sovereign wealth fund would likely be interested in buying Irish assets and Dublin is keen to offload state-owned companies, stakes in all of its banks and billion of euro worth of property assets help by the state-run "bad bank".

The most recent poll on the referendum showed that 49 percent would vote in favour of the treaty with 33 percent opposed and 18 percent still to make up their minds.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; editing by Ron Askew)