Greece on Friday said it had extended to April 4 a deadline for private creditors to swap foreign-law Greek government bonds they hold for new securities as part of a debt restructuring, confirming an earlier IFR-Reuters report.

"The Hellenic Republic decided to extend until 9.00 p.m. (CET) April 4 the expiration deadline for holders of each series of its bonds issued under laws other than Greek law and of bonds issued by state enterprises and guaranteed by the Republic,» the finance ministry said.

Holders of about 20 billion euros in foreign-law and state enterprise bonds, or 69 percent of a total face value of 28.3 billion euros, had already accepted Greece's offer on March 9 and holdouts had been given until March 23 to decide.

Greece's bond swap known as private sector involvement (PSI) is meant to reduce its debt mountain.

On March 12 Athens swapped a nominal amount of 177 billion euros of government paper issued under domestic law for new securities, inflicting real losses of about 74 percent on private sector bondholders.

The exchange of foreign law bonds with new securities is set to be settled on April 11. [Reuters]