Greek shipping remains a key growth driver for Greece's economy amidst the severe debt crisis, making the greatest contribution after the tourism industry, a survey presented on Monday in Athens indicated.

With more than 4,000 ships today, Greek-owned fleet ranks first in the world in total capacity, representing 16 percent of worldwide cargo capacity.

The direct contribution of the core Greek maritime cluster is estimated to be 7.6 billion euros (10.3 billion U.S. dollars), representing 3.5 percent of the Greek GDP, according to global consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group's (BCG) survey on the impact of Greek shipping on the Greek economy and society.

The total contribution of the shipping cluster, according to BCG's estimates, is 13.4 billion euros, or 6 percent of Greek GDP (2010 data).

Tourism contributed 16.4 percent to the country's GDP in 2012, according to the latest official figures, generating about 10 billion euros (13.3 billion U.S dollars) in direct revenue.

As Greece is experiencing the deepest economic crisis since World War II over the past three years with the Greek GDP having been contracted by a quarter since 2009, the contribution of the Greek industry in the past years has remained stable, indicating that it may amount to 7 percent in 2013.

In a country currently suffering from record high unemployment rates of some 27 percent, Greek shipping cluster employs approximately 165,000 people, which represents 3.5 percent of total workforce.

The potential for further contribution to efforts for economic recovery is great, according to the study.

"Shipping constitutes one of the sectors where Greece has a global competitive advantage. We can say indicatively that the average operational cost of the Greek-owned fleet is 23 percent more competitive than the global average," Camille Egloff-Ghicas, Head of BCG Shipping Practice for Southeastern Europe noted during Monday's presentation.

"This is an important message signaling that additional investments in the sector can be attracted; this is a key priority for the economic recovery," she added.

"The results demonstrate that shipping can be a main lever for growth, supporting the Greek economy in terms of liquidity, employment, contribution to GDP and investments in shipping as well as in many other sectors of the economy, as it has done in the past," BCG's head in Greece Vassilis Antoniadis stressed. (1 euro= 1.35 U.S. dollars) Endi

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