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The Eurogroup ministers agreed to release an 8 billion euro aid payment to Greece, the 6th installment of 110 billion euros of EU/IMF loans.

Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker.

"The disbursement will take place once the IMF executive board has taken its decision in the beginning of December. Funds will be made available by mid-December."

Greece is currently negotiating a second rescue package worth 109 billion euros, plus contributions from private sector bondholders.

The ministers also agreed on two ways to leverage the 440-billion-euro EFSF, using both an insurance scheme and a co-investment programme.

The head of the EFSF, Klaus Regling, said it was not possible to put a single figure on the size of the EFSF once leveraged, despite EU leaders expecting that it would stretch to 1 trillion euros once scaled up.

"Leverage is a process over time. We only need to mobilise resources if and when we need to support a member state and when we use our new instruments. But the EFSF is now ready to implement both approaches. We will use both options simultaneously. The final amount of firepower will depend upon the concrete use and mix of instruments and the exact degree of protection, somewhere between 20 and 30 percent."

Euro zone finance ministers will also explore ways of boosting the IMF's resources through bilateral loans so that the international lender can match the leveraged capabilities of the euro zone's bailout fund.

"We continue to explore further options to leverage the EFSF in light of market developments and investors' interest. We also agreed to rapidly explore an increase of the resources of the IMF through bilateral loans, following the mandate from the G20 Cannes summit, so that the IMF could adequately match the new firepower of the EFSF and cooperate even more closely with it,"
 
Later today, the ministers of the 17 countries sharing the euro will join their colleagues from the 10 EU member states that have kept their own currency for more discussion.

For CRI, this is Ding Lulu.