Warsaw - Poland said Tuesday is now hoping for possible Qatari state investment to help rescue two bankruptcy-threatened Baltic Sea shipyards after a private investor from the emirate surprisingly withdrew its purchase offer.

Polish Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad made the disclosure, citing a letter received from the Qatari ambassador to Warsaw that Qatar's own investment agency might enter the project.

If the agency reaches a positive assessment, then the sale of the two shipyards in Szczecin and Gdynia could be sealed by the end of August, Grad said.

His remarks came after a second deadline expired at midnight Monday for the private investor in Qatar to transfer 381 million zlotys (126 million dollars) to Warsaw for the shipyards.

The private investor, which had won the bidding for the shipyards in May, was originally supposed to have made the payment by July 21, but was granted an extension to permit further study of legal aspects of the deal.

Union officials were dismayed by the further delay in gaining an investor for the troubled shipyards.

"The situation is very bad," said Jan Guminski, head of the Maritime Workers Union, told the Polish TV network TVN24, saying that the government had suffered a painful setback in its effort to rescue the shipyards.

In July, Premier Donald Tusk had threatened to dismiss Grad as treasury minister if a solution to the shipyards problem was not resolved by the end of August.(dpa)