Maritime partners

Sino-Greek maritime cooperation dates to the early 1990s, when Greek mariners arrived in China to help develop the nation's ship repair industry, said Dimitri Kyrakides, founder and managing director of Marine Consult International, a consultancy specializing in shipbuilding with offices in Piraeus and Shanghai.

Kyrakides, a naval architect and marine engineer, was one of the first Greeks to repair a ship in China. He came to Shanghai in 1992 to help supervise ship repair work for Greek maritime firms with China operations.

"Greece had a first mover's advantage," he said. "There were very few foreigners back then working with the Chinese on ship repairs."

Greek investment in Chinese shipping surged over the next two decades.

"From 2002 to 2011, Greece was directly investing roughly US$64 billion in the Chinese shipping industry every one-and-a-half to two years," Kyrakides said.

With global shipping in crisis and Greece's fiscal woes at home, Kyrakides said it would be difficult for the Hellenic Republic to maintain that level of investment.

He is equally concerned about conditions in China's shipping labor market. Migrant workers returning home to seek employment has created a labor shortage in shipping yards, he said, delaying delivery of ships from three months to one year.

"I have a ship right now that was supposed to be delivered last April, but I won't see it until this April," he said.

When the delivery of a ship is delayed more than six months, a ship owner has the option to cancel the contract and get his money back.

To retain workers, shipyard owners must further increase salaries (wages have risen 20 percent in the last year) and offer travel expenses and better living conditions, Kyrakides said.