Greece has maintained its position as the largest ship owning nation, according to research carried out by the Clarksons Group.
Despite the many domestic and market challenges over recent years, figures have revealed Greek owners control close to 18 per cent of the world’s fleet, with a 333m dwt fleet on the water and a further 40m dwt on order, report Marine Link.
Their global market share is also the largest at 16 per cent, followed by Japan with 13 per cent, China 11 per cent and Germany 7 per cent.
While Greece managed to see the most significant growth amongst other top placed nations in 2015, with its fleet growing by over 7 per cent, Germany comparatively experienced the biggest loss.
Clarkson’s Research also noted that the Athenian port of Piraeus has the largest owning cluster of ships in the world, ahead of those in Tokyo, Hamburg, Singapore and Hong Kong/Shenzhen.
While Greece’s container ship fleet and gas carriers have seen some development over the years, it continues to be fairly limited in comparison to Norway, who have moved toward specialised vessels such as those moving offshore and car carriers.
Furthermore they have been slow in recent investment ranking, with Greek owners only taking US$6.9 billion of orders behind Japan (US$13.1 billion) and China (US$10.7 billion).
Despite this however, Greek owners have managed to maintain their place as a leading asset player, operating a fleet valued at $91 billion.
In 2015 they emerged as top buyers, followed by China, and were also the number one sellers in the sale and purchase market, with Japan and Germany in second and third place.