ATHENS: Cosco Pacific will bid for a majority stake in Greece’s port after the country’s new government reversed course on its opposition to port privatization.
The planned sale of a 67 percent stake in the PPA, which operates Pier I at Piraeus, Greece’s biggest port, had been suspended since the Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras took power in January. In late January, Alternate Minister for Shipping and the Aegean Thodoris Dritsas announced that the move was being blocked, adding that the deal would “be reviewed for the benefit of the Greek people”.
The previous government had shortlisted Cosco Pacific and four other bidders for its international bailout deal to sell a majority stake in the port authority. Since Cosco Pacific began running Pier II and Pier III at the port in 2008, container traffic through the port has increased eight-fold since the takeover. The company’s profit from its Greek operations jumped nearly 26 percent year-over-year to $29 million in 2014, as traffic rose 18.5 percent to nearly 3 million TEUs.The company in December got approval from the previous Greek administration to spend 230 million euros ($253 million) to expand the port’s capacity by 2.5 million TEUs to 6.2 million TEUs by 2021.
