Deadline for Greek ports sell-off

Greece’s HRADF privatisation fund has announced that binding offers for the tenders involving the privatisation of Piraeus port authority need to be submitted by this October, while the deadline for offers for the northern port of Thessaloniki will be due by February 2016.

Greece launched its €50 billion privatisation programme back in 2010 after signing the first bailout with international creditors, but up until recently it chose to veto the sell-off of the two ports.

But under prime minister Alexis Tsipras, the Greek government was forced into a U-turn as part of a package of reforms that were a key condition of the latest bailout loan offered by its European Union creditors.

As well as the two ports, Greece’s state railway company looks set to be sold off, while the Official Gazette announced that the German airport authority, Fraport, will be granted the concession for 14 regional airports in Greece -another sell-off that up until recently had blocked.

China’s COSCO Group, which operates operating two of the port’s cargo piers, is among the main contenders in the sale of a majority stake in Piraeus Port Authority.

But it faces rival bids from terminal operator APM Terminals, which announced in July that it was interested in both ports and was interested in obtaining them as part of its future growth plans.