Greek shipping magnates have returned at the top of the world’s shipping stats, controlling ships of a total capacity of 164 million tons, surpassing even the Japanese fleet, which has a capacity of 159.4 million tons, according to “Clarksons” research firm. As the firm states, Greek ships represent 16.25% of the world fleet and 30% of the European fleet belongs to Greek ship-owners. In addition, 23.8% of the world’s fleet of oil tankers belongs to Greek interests.

Greek ships, despite the fact that they are significantly less than Japanese ships or Chinese ships have much higher capacities. The total Greek fleet stands at only 4.984 ships compared to 8537 Japanese and 6427 Chinese ships. The rest of top ten in world shipping is supplemented by Germany, South Korea, the U.S, Norway, Singapore, Italy and Denmark.

Another factor which has benefited Greece’s international shipping is the fact that while Japan made major investments during the period of growth in the past decade, which has led to large losses during the crisis, Greece remained conservative and mitigated its losses.

Meanwhile, Greek shipping has moved to large ship purchases, worth 6.8 billion EUR for the first quarter of 2014.

Orders for new ships increased by 126% compared to last year’s corresponding quarter, with an investment of over 3.5 billion euros. Invested capital for the construction of new ships has also increased, surpassing 25 billion euros for 792 new orders.