Germany will increase pension benefits to Jewish Holocaust survivors and broaden the category of those eligible for compensation, BBC News reported.

The move is part of revisions made to the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement, under which West Germany assumed responsibility for the Holocaust.

As a result some 80,000 Jews in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union will receive payments for the first time.

To date, Germany has paid an estimated 55bn euros (£44bn; $70bn) to survivors.

The amended accord was signed by Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Julius Berman, chairman of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, to mark the treaty's 60th anniversary.

Under the new agreement, Jewish survivors in ex-Communist countries are now eligible for a one-off payment of 2,556 euros.