ATHENS, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Greece on Tuesday auctioned successfully 26- and 52-week treasury bills with a total value of 1.2 billion euros (1.6 billion U.S. dollars), the Greek Public Debt Management Agency announced.

Tuesday's auction was seen by analysts in Athens and abroad as a first crucial test for the Greek economy, after Eurozone partners agreed on the terms of a possible EU-IMF rescue package to Greece.

It was completed with quite a positive outcome, as demand was strong and the issue was oversubscribed. But the interest rates for Greece was still quite high compared to past auctions, experts said. It indicates that markets need more concrete reassurances on the course of the Greek economy.

The interest rate for the 26- week treasury bills reached 4.5 percent, while the rate for the 52-week bills stood at 4.8 percent.

Yet Tuesday's auction remained an encouraging signal for the Greek government which, according to Greek media reports, after the latest developments leaned towards sticking to borrowing from the markets and not making a request to the EU and IMF for the activation of the newly created support mechanism.

Equally successful was Tuesday's parallel issuance of non-competitive bids which added another 350 million euros (475 million dollars) to the sum Athens borrowed.

Greece has already borrowed at least 25 billion euros (34 billion dollars) this year and according to estimates needs to raise around 10 billion euros (13.6 billion dollars) in May to meet its financing needs and a total of 53 billion euros (72 billion dollars) by the end of this year.