Since the Chinese shipping company Cosco bought a majority ownership of the Greek Piraeus Port Authority (PPA), there has not only been the well-known dramatic increase in container ship traffic, but also, the ship repair facilities have seen a dramatic increase in ships coming to Greece to be repaired and serviced. According to an article in the Greek financial daily Naftemporiki, the number of ships being repaired annually has doubled. In the first half of 2023, 85 ships have been serviced in the PPA’s dry docks. For the entire year of 2022, more than 130 ships were repaired. This compares to only 69 being repaired in the year prior to Cosco taking over the port in 2016. Working days at the shipyards increased from 435 in 2016 to 1,306 in 2022. [Presumably, this indicates a change from one daily shift to three, i.e., ‘round-the-clock—ed.]
The second upgrade of the port restores it as a center for ship building. Cosco has already initiated investment to further upgrade the infrastructure and electromechanical facilities to enhance the productivity of the Shipbuilding Zone. All of this is in addition to continuing to upgrade the container port, which has now become one of the active in the Mediterranean.
