Euro zone approves next bailout tranche for Cyprus

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers on Thursday approved handing out the next tranche of bailout loans for Cyprus after the country met the last two conditions for the payout, a Cypriot official said. To get the 350-million-euro (273.72 million pounds) tranche from the European Stability Mechanism, the euro zone bailout fund, Nicosia had to amend laws on foreclosures and forced sales of mortgaged property in line with a deal with its international lenders. A document prepared for the ministers' meeting in Brussels said: "The programme partners find that Cyprus has complied with the conditions for a positive conclusion of the fifth review." It added that the payout would be recommended so long as this situation remained unchanged. "Today the eurogroup reaffirmed the significant progress made on reforms for the economic recovery of the Cypriot economy," Cypriot Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said. "The process of releasing 350 million (in aid) which our economy needs has started," he said. The EU and the IMF reached a deal in March 2013 to extend 10 billion euros in aid to Cyprus, staving off bankruptcy from exposure of its banks to indebted Greece, and fiscal slippage. A new tranche of aid, Cyprus has received about half of its bailout amount, had been delayed amid disagreement from local lawmakers on provisions of a foreclosures law demanded by lenders to make rising non-performing loans of banks more manageable. Cyprus's Supreme Court last week declared unconstitutional legislative amendments which essentially weakened the foreclosures process and which lenders had objected to. (Reporting By Jan Strupczewski and Alastair Macdonald, additional reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Janet Lawrence)