ATHENS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Greece made a new successful test return to markets on Thursday, selling a 7-year state bond with yield set at 3.5 percent, Greek national news agency AMNA reported.

Investors made bids amounting to 6.5 billion euros (8 billion U.S. dollars) for the bond issue, greatly oversubscribing the Greek Finance ministry's target of 3 billion euros.

On Monday, Greek authorities announced that they had mandated five banks for the transaction, but the issuance was delayed a few days due to the turmoil in international financial markets.

The debt-ridden country is expected to fully return to the markets in 2018 when the current third bailout program ends.

In July 2017, Athens made its first test return to markets since 2014 and raised 3 billion euros selling five-year state bonds at a 4.62 percent interest rate.

Greece also completed a state bond swap program worth 25.47 billion euros last November.

Thursday's transaction is one of the three state bond issues scheduled by the Greek government until the completion of the current bailout program in August, according to AMNA.

The aim of these issues is to restore the country's stable access to capital markets, to facilitate the return to financing normality after completion of the program as well as the building of a capital buffer. (1 euro = 1.23 U.S. dollars)