ATHENS, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Greece will issue a 15-year bond this week, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras confirmed on Monday, as the country's yields tumbled to new all-time lows.

In an Athens stock market filing on Monday, Greece announced it has mandated six banks to act as joint lead managers for the new bond that will be issued "in the near future, subject to market conditions", with a February 2035 maturity.

Staikouras told local Skai radio station that, following his communication with the country's Public Debt Management Agency, "Greece has started the process for a 15-year bond today", the first such issue after the country's emergence from an eight-year bailout process in 2018.

The news followed the upgrading of Greece's credit rating by Fitch Ratings on Friday to "BB", with a positive outlook.

"The upgrading of the country's credit rating by Fitch certainly paves the way for a new bond issue," Economics Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Geogios Argeitis told Xinhua.

On Monday, Greece's benchmark 10-year bond yield dropped to a historic low of 1.16 percentage points.

The drop in bond yields is not expected to affect demand by investors, said Nikolina Kosteletou, an Economics Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and board member at the Independent Authority for Public Revenue.

"There is so much money circulating internationally that there will definitely be some to be invested in Greek bonds. It appears we have returned to normality in our relationship with the markets, as we now attract a better quality of investors, not short-term profiteers," she explained to Xinhua.

In 2019, the first full year after Greece emerged from the bailout mechanism, the country conducted four forays in the bond markets collecting a total of 10 billion euros (11 billion U.S. dollars). This year PDMA has announced it aims at drawing between 4 and 8 billion euros. (1 euro = 1.1 U.S. dollars) Enditem

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