Hellenic Shipping today, including all Hellenic owned ships under foreign flag, is the world leader with a fleet of 3.246 ships of all types (over 1000 grit) totalling 75.156.763 gross tons, which covers the 16% of the world capacity. On the other hand, Hellenic flagged ships only total 8% of the world tonnage, which ranks Hellas in the third place among the leading shipping countries world-wide.

Thus, Helas with its merchant fleet ranks first among European Union Member States, owning about 50% of Total Union fleet. At the same time, a steady gradual renewal of Hellenic merchant fleet with modern ships is phased over the last years. More specifically, the average age of ships registering in Hellenic Registries is nine years while of those withdrawn respectively is 20 years, a very positive fact for the upgrading of ships safety standards and the protection of marine environment.

Furthermore, over 50 000 seamen are employed in the field of merchant shipping, which represent about 3% of the total manpower and support the income to the 5%of Hellenic families. If we also take into account the significant number of persons employed in shipping related industries operations (e.g. shipbuilding-shiprepairs- ship brokering- ship chandelling) it becomes clear that a large part of the Country's manpower depends on shipping in securing their employment.