The record level of 5,114 Greek-managed ships was reached in the year that Greek-owned maritime traffic was closed, Minister of Shipping and Island Policy Yiannis Plakiotakis stressed in his speech, emphasizing the sector’s role in economic development. but also the state in favor of the Greek registry.

Speaking as a guest of the Piraeus Nautical Club on Wednesday, the Sitia-born minister highlighted the contribution of Greeks to the country’s national economy, noting that the foreign currency that entered Greece from the beginning of 2022 to October amounted to 19.48 euros. billion euros, which corresponds to the amount of more than 10% of the gross domestic product in just 10 months.

“The permanent and fundamental aspiration of the ministry has been and remains to strengthen the global power of Greek shipping,” said Mr. Plakiotakis.

“For this reason, at the beginning of 2021, we promoted measures to restore the competitiveness of the national registry. Today, two years after the implementation of the measures, one can speak of a successful intervention, as the two years 2021-2022 saw a steady increase in the registration of ocean-going vessels in the Greek registry, corresponding to an increase of 23.8% for 2021 and 42.8% for 2022 compared to 2020,” he explained.

“During the same period, Greek court management reached a record high of 5,114 units, and now Piraeus is one of the largest, if not the largest, court management center in the world,” the minister said.

Creation of an “electronic sailor’s box”

He also stressed that the Ministry of Shipping is in the process of fully digitizing shipping documentation, with a particular focus on company registers, registers and seafarers’ registers, and said that nautical brochures will also be released digitally soon.

“In a few days, together with the Minister of Digital Governance, we will present an important innovation in the field of simplification of procedures with the digitization of the process of issuing and reissuing the nautical brochure. With the Seafarer’s E-Box project, we are creating an almost exclusively digital seafarer-to-port authority contact process, limiting the seafarer’s physical presence to an absolutely necessary level and ushering in a new era in the Seafarer’s Digital Booklet. put an end to the suffering of thousands of seafarers and free up the human resources of port authorities,” said Mr. Plakiotakis.

“Also, a digital application for the issuance of Marine Specialist Identification (ANI) will soon be operational, putting an end to the queues and suffering of seafarers. With a few clicks, they will be able to initiate and complete an application and track the progress of their application until the Seaworthiness Certificate is issued,” he added.