Eurozone finance ministers have agreed that private holders of the Greek government bonds would have to accept far more losses than the 21 percent haircut agreed in July, the Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said Saturday.

"We have agreed yesterday that we have to have a significant increase in the banks' contribution," said Juncker, who chairs the meeting of the euro zone's 17 finance ministers.

A report from Greece's international debt inspectors, which served as the basis for discussions at the finance ministers' meeting Friday, suggested that banks would need to accept up to a reduction of 60 percent in the value of their Greek bond holdings.

"In order to keep rescue loans from the euro zone to the 109 billion euros (151 billion U.S. dollars) foreseen under a second bailout deal tentatively reached in July, Greece's debt would have to be cut by 60 percent," said the report.

As he arrived for the meeting, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos confirmed the news by telling reporters that the European Union leaders were looking for banks to write down more than the July agreement.

Finance ministers of the EU countries are to meet Saturday to sort out ways to beef up the capital of European banks to cope with any Greek default.

Xinhua