How the First Major Ship Owner Nation is Developed

Reporter Li Xiaochuan & Zhang Shen

Greek shipping industry is considered to be the achievement of ten thousand year old tradition.Acute market sense and flexible operation are the unique advantages of Greek ship owners, which have continuously consolidated the Greece’s status as the largest ship owner nation. Greek ship owners have gone through shipping industry triumphantly for over a century and it is not by chance to maintain such high stability in such a high risky industry, therefore, it is considered worthwhile to study and learn from Greek ship owners.

The more depressed the industry is, the stronger the“governance” status the Greek ship owners will have in the global shipping business. Greek ship owners play an important role in the international shipping market in terms of both fleet size and ship transaction scale. In the second-hand ship market, Greek ship owners have seized the opportunity to update the fleet and bought high -quality ships which are generally under 7 years.

Compared with the active shipping market, Greek ship owners are still traditional “cross-traders”, and has maintained its market status by means of dry bulk transportation since the latter half of the 20thcentury. Up to now, Greek fleet mainly consists of bulk carriers (47%by GT ) and tankers (35% by GT ), taking up 85% of the total share over the past twenty years. The container fleet (11%) and gas carriers (4%) have also developed,though to a limited extent as compared to the whole fleet.Clarkson concluded that, although Greek ship owners have begun to diversify and develop into other areas of shipping, they still generally retain two important sectors:“dry sectors” and “wet sectors”.

It is worth mentioning that China and Greece have been deepening business cooperation in recent years, especially in the field of shipping. Greek ship owners have begun to build more and more ships in Chinese shipyards, they are the major customers for these ship yards and the major parties to which the Chinese banks issue shipbuilding loans.

Mr George C. Xiradakis, CCS Mediterranean committee member, Greek shipping finance senior, China Development Bank’s external expert in international business, believed that two factors mainly contributed to the tremendous growth of Greek shipping in this period:experienced crews and naval traditions; and ship owners with entrepreneur wisdom. Many of them were crews in the beginning. The characteristic of Greece ship owners is that they are open, insightful and innovative when they discover investment opportunities and make investment decisions. Greece has more such talents than any other country in the world, because they started maritime activities from an early age .

Insiders summarized the success secrets of Greek shipping as such: competitiveness, flexibility and rapid reaction; fleet management can be adapted to the changing environment; internationalized market; raising funds from foreign banks and capital markets; taking advantage of “crisis”; on the top of European shipping countries;ongoing fleet renewal; diversi fication of the professional market (LNG, and offshore engineering ) and training of the management personnel.