Piraeus port sees profits increase by 62% in first nine months

PIRAEUS, Greece’s largest port, has posted higher profits for the first nine months of 2022 on the strength of higher container throughput and passengership calls.

Post-tax profits increased by 62% to E 47.1m after revenues rose by 25.9% to $52.7m allmarinenews report.

Container throughput at the port authority’s facility grew by 7.8% to 502,042 teu.

Domestic cargo handling increased by 29% to 115,097 teu while transshipment cargo, which accounts for most of the pier’s traffic, increased by 2.8% to 386,945 teu.

Two larger container piers are operated under concession by China’s Cosco group, which now also owns a 67% stake in the port authority. Their operations were not reflected in the nine-month interim financial report.

Under Cosco’s control, the port authority is expanding the container terminal to serve 20,000 teu vessels and aims to hike annual handling to 10m teu.

The jump in profits, however, mostly stemmed from a strong third quarter that was attributed primarily to a rebound in cruise and ferry traffic that surpassed the last pre-pandemic season in 2019.

With an 88% rise in cruise ship calls, passenger numbers for the first nine months of the year more than tripled to more than 632,000.

In the coastal shipping sector, ferry traffic at Piraeus increased by 30% in terms of passengers and by 12.8% in terms of vehicles.

Piraeus’ car terminal was the main loser, posting a 14.9% decrease in traffic. Volumes for the Greek market increased by 13.6% but this was outweighed by a 24.2% dip in transshipment business at the terminal.