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.

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.

November 23, 2025 - Obviously China is in it for their interest and not for the love of the game. ... Apparently, China's purchase of this port was not done for charitable purposes. The reason for doing so in the first place was to make money.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

1 week ago - Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO acquired control of Piraeus Port through a concession agreement beginning in 2008, with majority ownership obtained in 2016.

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.

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."

November 20, 2025 - “I think there are ways around it… whether you pursue a path of enhancing output in other areas or perhaps that Piraeus could be for sale.” · In a rare statement, the Chinese embassy denounced any question of a sale in a post on X late on Wednesday saying Guilfoyle’s remarks were “groundless attacks” and the Greek-Chinese ties cannot be influenced by third parties. “The United States, with selfish intentions, is inciting Greece to terminate its contractual obligations and sell the port,” an embassy spokesperson said in the post, adding that the US displayed a “Cold War mentality”.

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 ...

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 ...

December 5, 2025 - With Piraeus port already in Chinese hands and the US bankrolling an expansion of Elefsina, experts argue that Greece must be careful to defend its strategic autonomy.

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 ...

March 23, 2022 - The China Ocean Shipping Company, commonly known as Cosco, has a majority ownership in the Piraeus Port Authority (PPA).

July 8, 2025 - SASAC’s growing role in European ports presents a security risk for the Union, Gunter believes. The takeover of Piraeus isn’t necessarily a concern in isolation, he said, but the problem lies in the potential influence of the Chinese acquisitions together: supply chains can become vulnerable and member states grow increasingly dependent on foreign money, making them more susceptible to political influence.