by Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Greece raised 812.5 million euros through an auction of 52-week treasury bills on Wednesday, the first such sale after eight years, with the total bids close to 2 billion euros, the Greek Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) announced.

The bids submitted were 3.18 times more than the asked sum and the interest rate of the issue was set at 1.25 percent, according to an e-mailed press release.

The last time Greece issued one-year treasury bills was in April 2010.

In the past eight years, as the country has been shut out of international markets, the PDMA has been selling three-month and six-month treasury bills each month to cover maturing debts to meet its financing needs, in parallel with the Greek bailout programs.

Greece is expected to fully return to the markets in 2018 when the current third bailout program expires this summer.

Since July 2017, Athens has also begun test returns to markets by issuing state bonds for the first time after 2014. (1 euro=1.24 U.S. dollars)