The port of Piraeus is presenting a 26.2% increase in container traffic, as Cosco seems to have remarked, based on statistics of the first four months of 2014, surpassing analyst forecasts. This upward trend has brought Piraeus in 8th place among the ports of Europe.

This increase is a result of various reasons. Initially, one reason is the drop of movements recorded in Eastern Mediterranean ports due to developments in Middle-Eastern countries. An additional reason is the position of Piraeus on the world map, since it reduces the transport time of cargo from East Asia to Eastern Europe by four days at least.

At a time when the cost of shipping fuel is high, the reduction of travel time for containerships is of strategic importance. Furthermore, another important fact is the level of services that both the SEP and the PPA offer in their Container Terminals, at least according to estimates made by shipping companies.

At the same time when the six candidates for 67% of shares of the PPA terminal (Cosco, Ports America Group Holdings, Cartesian Capital Group, International Container Terminal Services and Utilico Emerging Markets Ltd) amass data from the PPA database, Cosco, during these four months has raised container traffic from 748,500 teu, to 944,600 teu since last year.

The performance of Cosco Pacific subsidiary surpasses even the estimates of Business Monitor International, which speaks of an overall increase of 20% in 2014 for Piraeus containers.

It should be noted that in total, the Piraeus Container Terminal handled 3.1 million teu in 2013, out of which 2.5 million came from the SEP.