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Greek shipowners own the world's largest fleet by capacity: Unctad

GREEK shipowners come out top for overall fleet capacity globally, lead the wet and dry categories, and rank third in terms of owning the world's largest containership fleet, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).

In its latest review of sea transportation, Unctad places Greece in first place in terms of cargo carrying capacity at 309 million dwt, followed by Japan, China, Germany and Singapore. Collectively, the five countries control a market share of 49.5 per cent of dwt, reported Seatrade Maritime News of Colchester, UK.

According to the Unctad report, the global share of Greek-owned vessels in terms of dwt was 16.71 per cent in January 2017 of the world total compared to 16.36 per cent in January 2016, and is expected to grow further.

At the beginning of 2017, Greeks owned 4,199 vessels with a capacity of 308.8 million dwt versus 4,136 ships with a total cargo carrying capacity of 293.1 million dwt in January 2016.

Greece ranks third among the top five countries in terms of estimated commercial value, after the the US fleet's value of US$96 billion, and Japan. China and Norway follow.

A particularly interesting statistics to emerge from Unctad's Maritime Transport Review 2017 is Greek shipowners' increased share in the containership market. The Greek share has expanded, largely at the expense of German owners, to reach 8.13 per cent in container capacity terms.

Greek-controlled containerships number 563, with an average capacity of 3,224 TEU. At the same time, the world share of the German-owned containership fleet has declined to 21.46 per cent. The average capacity of the 2,100 German ships is 2,277 TEU.