Greek shipping continues to hold a leading spot in the global industry as the 2024 Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Centre Development Index (ISCDI) ranks Greece’s Attica region as the world’s seventh-largest shipping center globally.
This year’s list shows the Attica region, which is driven by shipping businesses located in Piraeus and the center of Athens, moving up one place compared to 2023, to reach its highest level since 2014.
Athens/Piraeus follows Singapore, London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Rotterdam in a list that comprises 43 shipping centers throughout the world.
According to an article at OT, the rankings examine the full range of a shipping center’s activity, such as specialized services offered by lawyers, financiers, and shipbrokers, the number of shipping companies, and port indicators such as cargo handling, draft, and the length of container berths, among others.
Additionally, the index evaluates the overall business environment, taking into account customs policies and supply chain performance.
According to the ranking, Athens, Piraeus, and the Attica region boast over 1,000 shipping offices.
Greek shipping places the nation at the top in the world, as Greek shipowners with 5,514 ships currently control approximately 21% of the global fleet, in terms of capacity (dwt). The total capacity of the Greek-owned fleet has increased by 45.8% compared to 2014, while even during the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., since 2019, capacity rose by 7.4%2.
The Greek-owned merchant fleet transports cargoes between third countries with more than 98% of its fleet capacity, thus being the world’s largest cross trader. Greek shipping is predominantly engaged in bulk/tramp shipping, which is a truly entrepreneurial sector that maintains characteristics of perfect competition: a very large number of private, mainly Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), compete globally for business on a daily basis, with flexible, lean and efficient administration and asset management, abundant and transparent access to information, and low entry and exit costs.
