"We are optimistic that by 2026 we will be able to expand the production line to another 20 tugs, highlighting the importance of tugs in the implementation of investment opportunities," the President and CEO of ONEX Shipyards & Technologies Group and President of the Association of Hellenic Shipyards, Panos Xenokostas, said speaking at the 1st Conference of the Hellenic Shipowners Association of Tugs, Salvage, Anti-pollution and OSVs, which took place on Monday in Piraeus.

Xenokostas participated in the opening session of the conference on "The role of tugboats in today's port challenges" and presented the group's vision and initiatives for the revival of the Greek shipbuilding industry, with the tugboat sector at the forefront.

According to a statement, he underlined that ONEX has strategically invested in the revival of the Syros and Elefsis Shipyards, transforming them from inactive facilities into modern ship repair and shipbuilding centres.

"At ONEX Group," he emphasised, "we envision, we plan, we implement. We have proven in practice that we can carry out and implement what we envision and announce - regardless of the adversities. We recently celebrated the repair of the 700th ship in our facilities, today we have reached 720 ships. This is an important milestone which marks not only a numerical goal, but the confirmation that Greece can - once again - play a leading role in ship repair. If we calculate only the ship repair sector of the Group which is approximately 125 million euros for 2024 - 2025, we are talking about an approximately 1 billion euro footprint in the country's GDP, hundreds of jobs saved and thousands of new ones created."