Shipping: The two major clients of Greek ports

The ports of Turkey appear to be the best customers of the two largest Greek ports, Piraeus and Thessaloniki, according to the fourth edition of the sectoral study on the Greek Port Industry, GREPORT2022, edited by George K. Vangelas, Thanos A. Pallis and Evi Kladakis.

Looking at the direct connectivity based on the monthly calls of different ports before and after the ships call to the port of Piraeus and Thessaloniki in 2021, some particularly interesting conclusions emerge, among which the largest number of calls to both major Greek ports originate from, or have as a destination the port of a neighboring country, a fact that also shows the connection between Greek and Turkish ports.

Piraeus

In particular, the country’s largest port, Piraeus, connects monthly directly with 73 different ports, from 31 different countries, two more countries than in 2020. 16 countries were European, 9 Asian, 5 African, and one on the other side of the Atlantic. 28% of the calls had an origin or destination in a Turkish port, while Italy ranked second with 14% of the calls. 6% of the monthly approaches came from or had as a next destination in a Greek port.

Egypt and Singapore are included in the top five (6% of approaches). Piraeus is directly connected to some of the main ports – hubs in the global transport networks.

In particular, it is connected (origin – destination) with Singapore with 25 routes per month, Port Klang (Malaysia) with four connections and with the European ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp with 16 and 13 monthly connections respectively. The port with which it maintains more connections is that of Izmir, followed by Singapore, Limassol, Thessaloniki and Ambarli (Turkey).

Thessaloniki

Looking at port connectivity, Thessaloniki is connected monthly directly to 12 countries and a total of 21 commercial ports. 31% of the approaches to the port of Thessaloniki come from or have a direction to a Turkish port. In second place is Greece with 30% of approaches, followed by Cyprus with 11%.

The top five include Egypt (8%) and Malta 6%. The most frequent port of connection with Thessaloniki is the port of Piraeus, as almost one in three approaches (28%) has a destination or originates from the country’s largest port.

The second most connected port is Limassol, with 9% of approaches coming from, or heading to, the largest port in Cyprus. In third place is Asyaport in Turkey (8% of approaches), while it is worth noting that nine ports in Turkey are connected to the port of Thessaloniki.

Based on the above data, Thessaloniki is a satellite port of key port hubs in the region (Piraeus, Asyaport) from which it is supplied with transit cargo and imports, and which it supplies either with transit cargo and exports.