THE Greek Port of Piraeus recently held an opening ceremony of its new facility Pier 3, run by Chinese shipping conglomerate Cosco, Xinhua reports.
Capt Wei's last hurrah, attends gala opening of new Piraeus terminal
THE Greek Port of Piraeus recently held an opening ceremony of its new facility Pier 3, run by Chinese shipping conglomerate Cosco, Xinhua reports.
Officiating was Cosco Group's CEO Wei Jiafu's last ceremonial acts, before he stepped down a few days ago from the post.
Phase one of Pier 3, occupying 120,000 square metres, has a quay length of 450 metres and is equipped with five double-container overhead cranes and six rail-mounted gantries. It is able to handle 700,000 TEU a year and can accommodate 18,000-TEU ships, the biggest afloat today.
According to the concession agreement, the new pier was constructed by PCT-Piraeus Container Terminal, an operating arm of Cosco Pacific and is the terminal with the deepest draft with the most modern facilities in the Mediterranean.
Greek Prime Minister Antonio Samaras delivered a speech to more than 120 participants including the Chinese Ambassador Du Qiwen, Greek ministers, representatives of key accounts and others.
Capt Wei said that when Cosco took over the terminal, the annual throughput was 166,000 TEU and it has since risen to 2.1 million TEU last year with this year's target being 2.5 million TEU.
Since the take-over, Cosco has directly created 1,000 jobs for local economies. Capt Wei also said he believed that the opening of Pier 3 will advance Cosco's business development and create more jobs.
Prime Minister Samaras said the new terminal expansion will provide 700 more jobs to Greece, believing the forthcoming collaboration is not only mutually beneficial to China and Greece, but for the entire EU.
