The International Monetary Fund Sunday hailed European Union's announcement of sweeping measures to stabilize its economic and financial system.

"I strongly welcome the far-reaching steps unveiled today by the European Union and the European Central Bank (ECB) to restore confidence and financial stability in the euro area," said IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a statement.

"These are strong measures that will help to secure global economic and financial stability, and preserve the global economic recovery," the IMF chief stated. "Implementation of actions to put public finances on a sustainable footing is key to restoring economic health in Europe."

EU finance ministers agreed early Monday on an unprecedented rescue mechanism worth up to 750 billion euros (US$956 billion) to prevent spread of the Greek debt crisis and rebuild confidence in financial markets.

Strauss-Kahn, a French, said the IMF will play its part in addressing the current challenges.

"In particular, we stand ready to support our European members' individual adjustment and recovery programs through the design and monitoring of economic measures as well as through financial assistance, when requested, in conjunction with the new European Stabilization Mechanism (ESM)," he said.

"Our contribution will be on a country-by-country basis, through the whole range of instruments we already have at our disposal. We expect our financial assistance to be broadly in the proportion of our recent European arrangements," he added.

Earlier Sunday, the IMF approved Greece's request for a 30-billion-euro (some US$40 billion) rescue loan to bail out the debt-ridden EU country.

According to the Washington-based agency, the front-loaded program makes some 5.5 billion euros immediately available to Greece from the IMF as part of joint financing with the European Union, for a combined 20 billion euros (US$25.5 billion) in immediate financial support.

In 2010, total IMF financing will amount to about 10 billion euros (US$12.7 billion) and will be partnered with about 30 billion euros (US$38.2 billion) committed by the EU.

(Xinhua News Agency May 10, 2010)