A review of Greece’s port ownership structure published this week confirms that international operators now dominate the management of the country’s key commercial gateways even as the Greek state retains formal ownership stakes. At Piraeus, Greece’s largest and busiest port, Chinese shipping giant COSCO remains the dominant private operator, while in Thessaloniki a Greek businessman sits behind the controlling shareholder of the port company. At Heraklion and Igoumenitsa, Italy’s Grimaldi group has taken majority stakes, extending foreign operator control beyond the flagship Piraeus concession that COSCO acquired in the previous decade.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addressed the arrangement directly at the Posidonia maritime exhibition in June 2026, stating that Greece is “proud of the dynamism of the ports of Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Igoumenitsa, Heraklion and Kavala, under the management of international port operators.” In a separate interview earlier this year, Mitsotakis was more blunt about the Piraeus arrangement specifically, acknowledging “the Chinese control the Port of Piraeus” while adding that his government respects contracts signed by prior administrations. The pattern established at Piraeus — a private or international operator controlling port operations while the Greek state retains ownership and concession rights — has since been replicated at other major Greek ports, reshaping the ownership map of the country’s strategic maritime infrastructure.
Source: GreekReporter.com — https://greekreporter.com/2026/09/01/who-owns-greece-ports-companies-billionaires/
Tags: Piraeus, COSCO, Thessaloniki Port, Port Privatization, Greek Shipping
