Greece's Piraeus Port has witnessed significant development ever since its management was taken over by the COSCO Shipping Corporation under a 35-year lease.
As part of the Belt and Road Initiative, the port is getting transformed into a significant international transit hub for rapidly growing trade between Asia and Europe.
COSCO Shipping's subsidiary Piraeus Container Terminal has been managing Piers II and III at Greece's largest port since 2009 under a 35-year concession agreement. The shipping corporation wants to boost the port's overall cargo traffic to over six million containers by 2019, up from just over four million at the end of 2017.
Nikolaos Petsos works for the company and he has witnessed the changes that the terminal has gone through over the past few years. It has been extended and upgraded with new infrastructure projects.
He said the terminal has been linked with Greek railways, and new gigantic cranes have been installed.
"It will be a very important link to the chain of the One Belt One Road initiative. The employment rate has been risen, we have 1,600 people working directly, and approximately 200 working indirectly," said Petsos, staff of the commercial department, Piraeus Container Terminal S.A.
COSCO Shipping also took over the management of Piraeus Port Authority which now runs Pier I.
In addition to the vigorous development of the container sector, investment and businesses in ship-building and repair, international cruise ships and car terminals are also expanding this year.
Yet another Piraeus Port Authority S.A. official believes that the One Belt One Road project has significant and positive effects on Greece’s local and national economy.
"We've the creation of a big logistics center in the Port of Piraeus. This serves the target to take advantage of the geographical position of the port, which is the first very large European port after the closing of Suez Canal; and to develop it as a hub center, as a logistics hub for the distribution of goods to other countries of the Mediterranean, but also the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe," said Nektarios Demenopoulos, deputy manager of the Public Relations Department, Piraeus Port Authority S.A.
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, and over the past five years, the port has done tremendously well in the container business segment, and even achieved a higher global ranking.
"When we took over this port, the first year the protective for the containers was 685,000 TEUs. Up to the end of last year, we had already reached 4.15 million TEUs. The rank on the top 100 biggest port, at the beginning, Piraeus port belonged to 93, last year we promoted to 36," said Fu Chengqiu, CEO of Piraeus Port Authority.
Sources:cctvplus
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