An assessment of the future competitiveness of port of piraeus

This study aims to provide an estimate of the current and midterm performance of port of Piraeus container terminal. To be more specific, the purpose of this thesis is to assess the competitive position of Piraeus in 2030 compared to other major European container ports and propose suggestions that would make Piraeus one of the leading ports in Europe. Even though the competitiveness of a port can be expressed by quantitative indicators such as, the throughput of its container terminal, this study will assess Piraeus’s competitiveness by examining the potential and the prospects of Piraeus as a container port. Thus, this study begins with a literature review on previous studies which have examined the topic of port competitiveness and came up with conclusions on which are the most important characteristics that make a port competitive and more attractive to its users in comparison to other ports. This enables us to have a clearer view on which of these criteria does the port of Piraeus already satisfies and which not, but should, in order to enhance its competitive position. After that, scenario planning analysis is conducted, which is the main methodology we deploy in order to assess the future of Piraeus container terminal. This analysis will point out the strengths and weaknesses of such a methodology and justify its use for the purposes of this study. Along with the latter it is important to also analyze the current trends that are most likely to affect the future of Port of Piraeus. Those trends are not only happening on an industry level (i.e. container shipping) but also on a country level like the general economic situation in Greece or it could concern initiatives by private companies in Asia that could disrupt the global trade and the global economy. Therefore, it is clear that this research is rather qualitative than quantitative, and the results are not based in any statistical forecasting methods such as regressions or time series models. In contrast, this study will explore different future scenarios that port of Piraeus might face in the future but also develop strategies that will help Greece’s largest port to successfully encounter them and become a highly competitive container port. To make our analysis more complete, our main method of research (i.e. scenario planning) is accompanied by a content analysis which have been used to extract the opinions of the industry experts regarding the container port of Piraeus.