Varvitsiotis: The ports should be addressed as strategic growth points

"Greece is ready to work with prospective investors in the port industry, as ports should be treated as strategic growth points," Shipping Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis says in an interview in the global shipping newspaper Lloyd's List. "Every port is a different story and each port can be developed differently. It can be done by allocating the majority of shares, privatization or sale of a piece of the port, or assignement of specific uses or cooperation strategy for the use of a service," he adds.

He also says that the recent agreement with the Chinese Cosco provides for investments of about 230 million euros and increases the container capacity by two thirds.

According to Varvitsiotis, Cosco has assured the Greek government that it will be interested to participate in a tender for the privatization of PPA, when announced, probably in early 2014.

For the taxation of Greek shipowners he says the ministry has concluded an agreement with them to voluntarily pay tonnage tax even for Greek-owned ships under a foreign flag. "Over 80% of the Greek-owned ships will pay twice the tonnage tax for the next three years," he said and committed to ensuring there will be no further taxation for shipowners.