OLP unveils property investment plan
Piraeus Port (OLP), Greece’s largest, will invest some 130 million euros in developing three of its main facilities as it aims to return a full-year profit, Chief Executive Officer Nikos Anastasopoulos said yesterday. OLP’s investment plan includes turning its exhibition area in Piraeus into office space for shipping firms with the ground level used by cruise ship passengers. A second building, which currently houses OLP’s offices, will be handed over for commercial use by stores and shipping companies. Anastasopoulos also said he expects a return to full-year profit provided revenues and cost cutting do not deviate from projections. «After containing losses in the last period, we estimate full-year results will not be negative, if revenues stay as they are and cost cutting remains on track,» he said. The port, which has seen containers pile up due to dockworkers’ refusal to work overtime since January, reported a 0.6-million-euro loss in the nine-month period, against a 20-million-euro profit a year earlier. Greece, with two of the largest ports in the Eastern Mediterranean region, launched tenders for freight-handling operations at Piraeus and Thessaloniki earlier this year in an effort to turn them into regional hubs and boost cargo business. China’s Cosco Pacific, the world’s fifth-largest port operator, has signed a guaranteed -3.4 billion deal with OLP to upgrade and run the port facilities for 35 years at Piraeus, which it sees as a commercial gateway to Southeast Europe. (Kathimerini, Reuters)
