AKIPRESS.COM - Eurozone finance ministers agreed to pay out €8.3 billion of Greece's bailout package on Tuesday, bringing to a close a protracted battle between the Athens government and its creditors over the latest round of austerity reforms, EUobserver reported.

As a result of the agreement, approved at a meeting in Athens as part of Greece's six month EU presidency, Greece will receive a first tranche of €6.3 billion at the end of April that will allow it to meet debt repayments totaling €9.3 billion in May.

Two further payments to Greece, each of €1 billion will then be made in June and July.

The deal comes more than six months after Troika officials first began their review in September. But the review mission, the fourth of the Greek program, hit an impasse after the Troika failed to strike a deal with the Greek government on the next round of labor market reforms and spending cuts.

Greek MPs passed a new raft of labor market reforms and cuts to healthcare spending on Sunday.

Dutch minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs the meetings of the currency bloc's eighteen finance ministers, said that the deal would ensure that Greece would have no cash-flow problems for the rest of 2014 when the second part of the country's €240 billion bailout comes to an end.

Meanwhile, Greek finance minister Yannis Stournaras is confident that Athens will avoid needing a third rescue package and has indicated that he plans to make the Greek treasury's first foray into the bond market since 2010 by selling selling between €1.5 billion and €2 billion of five-year bonds in the coming months.

There are growing signs that Greek will be able to re-finance itself on the markets. Interest rates on ten year government bonds have fallen to 6.5 percent, down from over 30 percent just two years ago, and within several percentage points of fellow eurozone periphery countries Italy and Spain.

After six consecutive years of recession the Greece economy is expected to grow by 0.6 percent this year, with the European Commission forecasting a 2.9 percent growth rate in 2015.