On Monday three Japanese shipping companies announced their intentions to merge, which would result in creating the third largest company of shipping companies with regular container ship lines.
The move would be positive for the Greek port Piraeus as well as the country, according to sources from Piraeus Port Authority’s new Cosco-controlled administration.
The merger involves Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Lines), Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK). These three companies plan to join forces to create a huge container shipping merger that would control a fleet of 134 vessels with a capacity of 1.054 TEUs, or twenty-foot equivalent units, at a value of $6.1 billion.
The port of Pireaus would potentially profit from such a merger because one of the three companies involved, K Lines, already has a strong presence in Piraeus. This coupled with the fact that Asian tourists have been flocking to Greece in recent years in new record numbers, is part of the country’s goals to become a hotspot for Asian tourism in Europe.