October 30, 2022 - In Piraeus, majority shares in the port were sold to Cosco: its initial 51% was later increased to 67%. The Chinese shipping company can therefore decide the future of the port. Cosco controls all the piers, and all the terminals.

On 8 April 2016, the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF) formally signed an agreement to sell a 67 percent stake in the Port of Piraeus to the Chinese shipping company, China Cosco Holding Co.The total value of the agreement amounts to EUR 1.5 billion.

November 20, 2025 - China's controlling stake in the Greek port of Piraeus, one of the largest in Europe, is not for sale, the Chinese embassy in Greece said, denouncing comments by newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Greece Kimberly Ann Guilfoyle.

March 15, 2022 - The decision blocks the expansion of the passenger port of Piraeus and the building of a new passenger terminal as envisaged by an agreement granting a concession to develop the port of Piraeus to Chinese company Cosco Group Limited.

December 9, 2021 - PIRAEUS, Greece -- "They sold this place to China and Russia," screamed the graffiti on a road along the Port of Piraeus, about a 20-minute drive from Athens.

August 5, 2019 - Situated at the edge of Athens—a short sail from the Middle East and Africa—the port has been a strategic jewel for nearly 2,500 years, ever since the Athenians and Spartans defeated the Persian emperor in a nearby sea battle for Mediterranean supremacy. But as the crowd in the square knew, Tsipras’s own government had sold off Piraeus, years earlier, to a modern-day empire intent on expanding its own power: China. When Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the ambitious vision he called the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, in 2013, he had commerce, not conquest, in mind.

October 10, 2024 - The presence of China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) in the Port of Piraeus has become a focal point for discussions of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), feeding either alarmist or complacent narratives about the BRI’s impact. Yet, beneath grand geopolitical considerations lies a complex and nuanced reality of local–global interactions that have a lasting impact on the ways that communities experience Chinese investment and the many controversies surrounding the deal itself.

April 8, 2016 - The deal was signed in a ceremony at the port attended by Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and Cosco's chairman Xu Lirong on Friday afternoon. In a statement, law firm Paul Hastings, one of the advisors on the deal said: "This marks one of the most high profile Greek privatizations of recent years and successful execution of the deal is a key part of the plan to turn Piraeus into a logistics hub for Chinese exports to Europe."

April 8, 2016 - Greece has sealed the sale of its biggest port, Piraeus, to COSCO, the state controlled China Ocean Shipping Company, marking the second major privatization for the country since 2015.

June 5, 2023 - Abstract This article analyzes the effects of the acquisition of the Port of Piraeus by the Chinese shipping operator COSCO in July 2016 on the organization of container traffic in Europe. Using re...

November 2, 2023 - This was done most effectively by allowing China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) to purchase a majority stake in the port of Piraeus. What had started as a demand by the European institutions that Greek public assets be privatized in a ‘fire ...

“I believe there are ways to address this, whether by pursuing a strategy of increasing production in other areas or perhaps Piraeus being for sale,” she added. In a rare statement, the Chinese embassy rejected any possibility of a sale in a post on X on Wednesday, November 19, describing Guilfoyle’s comments as “unfounded attacks” and stating that Greco-Chinese ties cannot be influenced by third parties. “The United States, with selfish intentions, is inciting Greece to break its contractual obligations and sell the port,” declared a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the post, adding that the North American country displays a “Cold War mentality.”

August 31, 2024 - The Greek Port of Piraeus was acquired by the Chinese state-owned company, China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), in 2016. COSCO initially purchased a 51% stake in the port and later increased its ownership to 67% in 2021.

August 30, 2023 - ATHENS, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- Since China's COSCO Shipping bought into Greece's largest but ailing Port of Piraeus 13 years ago, the harbor has experienced rapid growth and has been transformed into a bustling key transport hub at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Africa.

January 30, 2024 - The Chinese group COSCO Shipping owns two-thirds of the port of authority of Piraeus, the 14th-largest port in Europe (with millions of metric tons in freight handled, according to Eurostat), which specializes in handling large containers and ...

China now owns 60% of Greece's shipping port, Piraeus and it is already evident that some entities are benefitting more from the investment than others.

In 2021, as stipulated in the 2016 deal, COSCO acquired a further 16 per cent stake of the PPA for 90 million EUR, bringing its share to 67 per cent. Over the past decade, the real or imagined geopolitical ramifications of COSCO’s gradual ...

October 17, 2025 - The reality is, when the port/infrastructure/chip company such as Nexperia goes bankrupt, they western countries want you to sell it but of course they won't buy it. When Chinese buy it, they were like: finally we turn this useless trash to cash. But Chinese are good at doing business. When they turn trash to a cash cow, the western countries suddenly consider those assets "should not have been sold", and want them back free (nationalize or something with half-a-century old law).

September 30, 2025 - The port of Piraeus, which in 2024 handled 4.2 millon teu, has become the entry port of choice for the illicit trade, according to EPPO. A network of professional enablers at the port facilitates the entry of the goods into EU markets through ...

October 19, 2021 - Beijing cements control of key EU infrastructure but locals say they have not seen the investment they expected