Port

Data compiled by the Transportation Ministry has shown that the number of cruise tourists who visited Turkey in 2014 decreased by 20 percent from the previous year. 

Black Sea ports doubled the number of cruise tourists in 2014 from 2013, although leading cruise ports attracted lower numbers of cruise tourists than they had done in 2013. 

By Nikos Roussanoglou

Work gets under way on the expansion of the cruise terminal in Piraeus this year, set to make it the biggest cruise hub in the Eastern Mediterranean, allowing for the docking of the biggest and best cruise ships, whose length exceeds 300 meters.

The investment is worth 136 million euros, which is 95 percent subsidized by the European Union.

The controversial planned Istanbul Salıpazarı Port Area project, commonly known as Galataport, will be an “exemplary project” without multi-story eyesores, according to project partner Serdar Bilgili.

As part of a broader plan by Greek authorities to avert potential cases of Ebola, the crew of all ships arriving at the cargo terminal of the country’s main port of Piraeus will be obliged to remain on board their vessels until the captain has filled out a special form with details of the ship’s route and all its stopovers.

A record number of containers were processed in July at Terminal 1, which is run by the Piraeus Port Authority (OLP), it emerged on Monday.

By Nikos Roussanoglou

Cruise tourism officials are expecting the number of passengers visiting Greece to increase by about 15 percent in 2015 compared with this year, given the data compiled to date.

By Nikos Roussanoglou

The container handling activity of Chinese company Cosco’s local subsidiary in Piraeus posted an impressive 26.7 percent increase in the first half of the year compared with the same period of 2013, the firm announced on Tuesday.

Some 10.6 million packets of cigarettes were found on Wednesday in two of three cargo containers labeled as containing office supplies that arrived at the port of Piraeus from Dubai.

The first of the three containers held 529,000 packets of Ashford King Size cigarettes and the second the same amount of the Tradition brand.

They represent some 3.7 million euros in lost taxes.

By Nikos Roussanoglou

Greece is the third most popular destination in Europe among cruise passengers, according to the annual survey by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) for 2013.

The Greek port of Piraeus could become one of Europe’s top five container-shipping hubs as the government spurs logistics activities in a bid to kick-start economic growth, said Development Minister Kostis Hatzidakis.