A new sea link between Greece’s Lavrio and Turkey’s Cesme ports will go into operation on June 2, boosting trade by avoiding long overland travel for large trucks while serving tourists as well, according to ANA.
Shipping agents of the two countries will run the line through Istanbul-based Aegean Sea Ways, overseen by chairman Bulent Ipek. Its representative in Greece is Stefmar Ltd., headed by Stefanos Karakanis.
Speaking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA), Karakanis said that the line, a 7-hour-long trip connecting the two ports, will be available year-round. Originally, he noted, they had looked at the prospect of using the port of Rafina, further north on the eastern Attica coast. But it port did not offer the necessary customs processes, “while there was also a problem of congestion from the multiple shipping lines” running out of the port.
“Up to now, nearly 440,000 trucks from Turkey and another 300,000 from Iran and Azerbaijan go through Bulgaria or northern Greece’s Egnatia Odos to Igoumenitsa (the port on western Greece), under great stress and at high operational cost,” the Piraeus-based Stefmar official pointed out.
“A truck driver or a tourist or passenger arriving from Ancona, Italy usually sails to Igoumenitsa, from where they have to travel nearly 600 to 700 kilometres through Egnatia Odos, waiting at the Turkish border controls for 6 or 7 hours in winter and up to 12 hours in the summer before reaching Izmir or further inland in Turkey after another 6 to 10 hours of driving,” Karakanis added.
The new line will “allow a passenger, tourist, or truck driver to reach Izmir from Ancona and Patras and Lavrio in 1.5 days,” he concluded.
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