By Antonis Tsimplakis

 

 

The port of Piraeus has been established as the first European port in the Mediterranean, and the fourth in Europe. However, the development of the port of Valencia and the reduction in traffic over the last three years have led the Greek port one place lower on the European list.

 

According to the latest data, in the first half of 2023, 2.24 million teu were handled from piers II and III of the Piraeus Container Terminal managed by COSCO’s subsidiary, SEP SA. In the second quarter of the year, a 14.5% growth was recorded covering the losses of the first quarter of the year, which was 4.3%.

 

Adding the figures of the first pier of the container port terminal SEMBO, controlled by the Piraeus Port Authority (COSCO is the main shareholder with 67%), which reaches approximately 300,000 containers, the total traffic in the six months exceeds 2.5 million teu.

 

Based on these data, the container port terminal of Piraeus seems to be surpassing Valencia, which, according to the latest data, reached 2.36 million teu in the first half of 2023, down 11.2% compared with the corresponding period last year 2022.

 

It is noted that China is the main trading partner of the port of Valencia with 268,512 containers this year, followed by the United States with 176,824. But the countries that have seen the biggest increase in their movement are Vietnam (+27.97%), Egypt (+24.08%), India (14.78%) and Mexico (+11.94%).