By Paris Tsirigotis

 

 

Piraeus Port Authority (PPA) showed an increase in revenues and profits in the first half of 2024, once again achieving the best historical performance for this period of time.

 

More specifically, the total revenues of the first half of 2024 amounted to 107.1 million euros compared to 102.4 million in the same period of 2023, up 4.7 million euros or 4.6%. This change is mainly due to the significant increase in the revenues of the car traffic sector by 59.9%, the cruise sector by 13.2%, as well as the container sector by 4.0%.

 

Pre-tax profits rose 7.3% to 53 million euros compared to 49.4 million euros in the corresponding period of 2023. After-tax profits amounted to 40.4 million euros compared to 38.7 million euros, showing a positive change of 4.4% compared to the corresponding half of 2023.

 

The President of PPA SA Mr. Lin Ji, expressed his satisfaction with the company’s higher revenues and profits in the first half of 2024: “The instability and special geopolitical conditions in the Middle East continue to exist. Our company and the port of Piraeus, as everything shows, managed not only not to be affected by this situation, but to continue its overall activity with upward performance and positive results, just as it has been doing continuously for a long time. This perfectly demonstrates the efficiency of its strategy, as well as the systematic work, which have ensured all the necessary elements for reliability and above all sustainability in the Port of Piraeus.”

 

 

 

At the same time, the investment program of the Piraeus Port Authority is progressing rapidly, following the issuance of the presidential decree, the approval of the master plan and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) as well as the new environmental assessment approval.

 

PPA has set the goal of completing all mandatory investments at the end of the first investment period, according to PPA SA Deputy CEO, Panagiotis Tsonis, at the 7th Transport and Infrastructure Conference held at the Athens Concert Hall. “This is an ambitious, but achievable goal,” he underlined.

 

He also revealed that the “green light” was given by EU Funding and the Region of Attica to continue and restart the project of expanding the cruise pier in the southern part of Piraeus port.

 

At the same time, he emphasized that dredging is progressing in the port, “an important project from both an environmental and safety point of view, as it will allow better docking of ships.”

 

He estimated that, by the end of 2024, the underground connection of the stores, which will connect the Container Terminal with the Logistics Center, will be completed, while the upgrade of the Perama Shipyard Repair Zone (NPZ Perama) is also progressing.

 

Referring to the “green” transition, Tsonis argued that it is directly connected to ports and shipping. On top of this, the PPA will spend over 50-60 million euros for the supply of ships with electricity from land (cold ironing), for a total of 9 positions, 5 for coastal shipping and 4 for cruises.

 

At this moment, studies have begun for 2 more cold ironing positions in the new cruise extension, while at the same time studies are underway to meet the needs of ro-ro and container ships.

 

Also, Tsonis stated that “we are at the stage of tendering projects for the implementation of cold ironing regarding the aforementioned 9 ship positions.”

 

Regarding the PPA’s performance for the current year, special mention was made of the impressive figures of cruise in the port of Piraeus, which is expected to achieve a new record with over 1.6 million passengers.