by Lloyd's List
3 June 2025 (Lloyd's List) - GREEK ports have not always capitalised on the country’s strategic location as much as they ought to, but there is an unprecedented buzz of interest around the sector that is as much due to geopolitical factors as to the upward trajectory of results.
In 2024, both of the largest ports in the country enjoyed a record year, despite transhipment traffic suffering from Red Sea diversions necessitated by Houthi attacks on shipping.
The Piraeus Port Authority, 67% owned by China state giant Cosco Shipping, posted a 31% increase in post-tax profits, while revenues increased by 5% to €230.9m ($263.8m) — also an all-time high.
The country’s largest port has kicked on again early in 2025, unveiling a 23% increase in net earnings for the first quarter of the year. The improved results have been spread across various operational sectors.
The credentials of Piraeus as a regional hub have also been augmented by its recent inclusion in a Cosco Shipping Car Carriers service from China to Mediterranean ports, which is expected to double frequency to two calls per month before the end of 2025.
Thessaloniki, the northern gateway that aspires to be a key logistics enabler for the Balkans and the broader southeast, central and eastern European region, also turned in a record year for revenues and throughput, despite the geopolitical instability.
Container traffic and conventional cargo increased by 9% in volume, while passenger traffic doubled, and revenues rose by 17% to surpass €100m for the first time.
In the aftermath of privatisation in 2018, a vehicle belonging to Niko Savvidis, son of a prominent Greek-Russian investor, emerged with majority control of port authority ThPA.
Earlier this year, Louis Dreyfus-backed LeonidsPort made a bid amounting to $57m for the 21% free float of ThPA on the stock exchange, while French giant CMA CGM, a minority shareholder in the port, has been widely reported in local media as wanting full control.
However, the US has also been eyeing the port as a possible counterweight to China. Analysts have also said it would suit Washington’s aims if Thessaloniki can be fitted into India’s so-called India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) trade initiative.
Commercial ambitions have jostled with geopolitical considerations in determining the future of some of the country’s secondary ports, too.
Italy’s Grimaldi Group has invested heavily to win control of two of the ports that have been put up for privatisation in the past few years: the port of Igoumenitsa on Greece’s northwestern seaboard; and the port of Heraklion in Crete.
Both link to the group’s ferry operations, but the investor saw the ports’ potential as extending far beyond one sector.
Meanwhile, “for sale” signs have been taken off two other privatisation-listed ports, apparently because of their potential geopolitical significance.
Rethinks have taken place for both Alexandroupolis in the north and Volos on the central eastern coast of the country, and a new development model is being drawn up with continuing state participation.
The creation of a floating storage and regasification unit for liquefied natural gas, which began operations last year, made Alexandroupolis an energy hub and the invasion of Ukraine highlighted its location for military logistics.
In 2023, ThPA emerged as the preferred bidder for majority control of the Volos port authority, but the tender process was finally scrapped earlier this year. Instead, an “independent development model” will be explored for the port, “positioning it as a gateway for trade and international outreach”.
As another Greek gateway that is seen as holding outsized significance in wrestling between the US and China over trade and more, Volos is said to have become a potential candidate for funding from the US International Development Finance Corporation.
This article is part of Lloyd’s List’s ‘Greece 2025’ special report, which will be published in early June
