Port

The Kavala Port Authority announced the suspension of loading and unloading activities at the port of Keramoti, relocating them to the commercial port Filippos B in the area of Nea Karvali.

The transfer of commercial operations to another port is part of an effort to ease congestion at the port of Keramoti, which is the most popular ferry line for the island of Thasos.

A total of 749 cruise ships visited Türkiye's ports in the January-August period, bringing 1.2 million passengers, according to data from the Transport Ministry.

August was the busiest month in terms of cruise ship traffic at 176, but most passengers arrived in July at more than 315,000.

Iraklio will host the 8th Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum next May, as the organizers of the East Mediterranean's most important cruise conference, with the support of the Region of Crete and the Iraklio Port Authority and in collaboration with local authorities, prepare to bring this Confex event to the country's largest island for the first time.

Piraeus ranked 4th in 2023 – up from 5th in 2022 – among the top 15 container handling ports in Europe, from which a total of 72.5 million TEUs were handled, according to PortEconomics.eu.

It surpassed the port of Valencia, while the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg are in the top three.

Athens and Piraeus have moved up to seventh place in the global ranking of the largest shipping metropolitan centers. It is the heart of Greek-owned shipping, which is the biggest force in the international shipping industry, and is home to Greek and foreign shipping companies as well as Greek and foreign shipping companies.

The greater Athens area, including the port of Piraeus, became the seventh most important shipping center globally in the Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Center Development Index after climbing one place.

Calls are growing for a change in the legal framework to address the increased safety risks for passengers due to aging ports, the insufficient number of port authority personnel and the pressure on ships to keep up with demanding schedules.

Tellingly, the port infrastructure was built more than 50 years ago to serve ships half the size of today's vessels.

The number of containers traveling through the port of Piraeus continued to decline in July as a result of the unstable situation in the Red Sea, where the Houthis of Yemen continue to attack merchant shipping.

Heraklion Port is increasingly establishing itself on the map of commercial transport and cruise tourism. The port was recently acquired by the Grimaldi Group (Grimaldi Euromed SpA – Minoan Lines), which purchased a 67% majority stake for €80 million.

The prospect of a further deterioration of the situation in the Middle East, as well as the unforeseen direction that the Russian-Ukrainian war has taken, has generated concern in Athens, which is closely monitoring developments but, of course, unable to have a meaningful impact.