“Greece has the largest commercial fleet worldwide, with 20 percent of the world’s commercial fleet and 50 percent of Europe’s, in terms of capacity,” said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday.
Speaking at the Posidonia shipping exhibition, Tsipras said that shipping is of major importance for the country, contributing more than 9 billion euros to the economy in 2017, nearly 20 percent higher than in 2016.
“We worked hard for this recovery to come for the Greek economy,” he said. “From a country that continually ran deficits, and came just about last among the countries in the eurozone, we are now of the first and run surpluses,” he said.
Turning to the government’s agenda for the coming weeks, the premier said Greece intends to wind up the fourth review of the country’s third bailout in time for the June 21 meeting of eurozone finance ministers.
“We are working with our partners for a (debt) solution able to convince markets in the long term and give time to the Greek economy to grow and reduce via growth the debt it has accumulated,” he said.
After the successful completion of the fourth review and a debt deal for Greece, the country will very soon be able to stand on its feet without any credit lines, he added.
