Greece raised €1.56 billion in an oversubscribed treasury bill issue that came after a EU backup pledge on its debt over the weekend.
The Greek public debt management agency said the issue of one-year and six-month bills had attracted bids of €3.9 billion and €4.6 billion, and the state had decided to accept €780m on each batch. Greece had originally wanted to raise a combined €1.2 billion from the latest release.
The loan drive is Greece's first after its euro zone partners on Sunday offered to lend Athens €30 billion this year at a preferential rate in order to calm fears of a default. Greece's total debts were last tallied at about €300 billion.
Athens has to find around €11.5 billion by next month, part of about €54 billion needed for all this year to cover debt and budget needs.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou yesterday did not rule out use of the rescue mechanism but noted that a decision to activate it would take 'some time' and would depend on a variety of factors, not just borrowing costs.
'We effectively now have a mechanism which exists, in detail, regardless of whether we activate it or not,' he said. 'We can activate it at any given moment. That is to be evaluated, which cannot happen in a day, it will take some time to evaluate if we need to activate it, and of course this will be linked to various factors, not just spreads,' he added.
The spread between Greek and German 10-year bonds last week soared to a record high point but yesterday declined after details of the EU support mechanism became known.
