Maritime transport

The only inhabitable Bulgarian island of St. Anastasia opens today for the most eager to visit it, but with certain security measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum on the island will remain closed, and only the open spaces and the Church will be available to guests, econ.bg reported.

The Merchant Marine Ministry is considering a second package of measures to support coastal shipping companies. The total amount granted will come to 30 million euros, with one large company set to receive about half of that.

The 22 large ferries still providing coastal shipping services across the Aegean Sea are suffering daily losses of 660,000 euros, market experts note.

These losses have come to a total of 20 million euros in just one month for the ferry operators, and will rise to 40 million if this situation continues - as expected - for two months.

The measures Greece and other countries have taken to contain the spread of Covid-19 have not yet impacted trade in Piraeus, officials involved with business in Greece's main port told Xinhua.

One of the fake galleons that were one of the most ridiculed features of the former government's faux-historic Skopje 2014 revamp of the capital is to be removed by mid-April on the order of the city authorities.

A Malta-flagged cruise ship which has carried 375 tourists from the Greek island of Rhodes to the popular Turkish resort town of Kuşadası, one of the important centers of Turkish tourism, has docked.

Some 375 tourists, mostly U.S. citizens, who came disembarked the cruise, entered the country, after undergoing thermal camera control, a precaution against the coronavirus.

The shipping industry appears particularly concerned with the new regulations whose introduction the International Maritime Organization is considering ahead of reaching the target of zero-carbon fuel by 2050, the 11th Annual Capital Link Greek Shipping Forum heard on Thursday in Athens.

A total of 41,112 vessels passed through Turkey's Bosphorus Strait in 2019, according to official data.

The number of vessels using the strait was unchanged with the previous year's figures of 41,103, the country's Transportation and Infrastructure Ministry announced.

Greek ports are expected to attract more cruise tourists following a rise of about 15 percent both in cruise liner calls and passenger arrivals in 2019, officials have told Xinhua.

Ferries remain docked in most Greek ports on Thursday due to strong northerly winds reaching up to 9 on the Beaufort scale, state-run news agency ANA-MPA reported.