Greece is considering speeding up the sale of the country's principal port, the Piraeus Port, which is the third largest port in the Mediterranean, along with rapid growth over the last three years and a doubling in size since 2011.

The sale of the government's 74% stake in the Port of Piraeus SA, planned for 2014, could also include a 30 to 40 year management concession.

Based on the current market price of the Piraeus Port Authority (OLP) stock, the stake should fetch at least €320 million (US$436 million), but the price could be considerably higher given that the government and state privatization fund TAIPED holds the majority stake that would justify a premium on the current level of the stock's trading value.

The Chinese company COCSO, which is managing all operations at Pier II and III of the Piraeus container terminal, last year handled 2.520 million TEU, compared to the 2.4 million expected. With an additional 644,000 TEU handled by the Greek Piraeus Port Authority (OLP) at Pier I, total container traffic amounted to 3.163 million TEU.

It is estimated that Piraeus will be the busiest container terminal in the Mediterranean by 2016. The port ranked 4th in 2012 in terms of TEU in the Mediterranean. The port of Valencia in Spain ranked first with 4.46 million TEU, followed by Algeciras, also in Spain with 4.1 million TEU.