Today in Athens, at the Ministry of Development and investments, Minister Adonis Georgiadis signed together with Panos T. Xenokostas, president of ONEX Elefsis Shipyards and Industries and ONEX Elefsis Naval & Maritime as well as US parent company ONEX Technologies Group, to Ioannis Stefanou representing Elefsis Shipyards and other parties involved, including to which the creditors of the Eleusis shipyard and the trade unions, the agreement for the restructuring and transfer of the activity of the heavily indebted shipbuilding company Elefsis Shipyards to ONEX, agreement to be submitted to the Assessment of the bankruptcy court.

Elefsis Shipyards is owned by Neorion, Greek company from which last year ONEX had taken over the Greek shipyard Neorion Shipyards on the island of Syros which is was renamed ONEX Syros Shipyards.

The agreement signed today, which will allow the restart of the activity of the shipyard, has the objective of both saving the jobs of the 600 people employed on the construction site, to which will be paid, among other things, arrears of 13.4 million euros, and to create an additional 1,400 jobs in three years, to make an investment of 100 million dollars in the construction site, to ensure the Greek State revenue of 1.1 billion euro in the next 25 years coming from direct and indirect taxes and insurance contributions, and to strengthen the Greek economy thanks over 1.6 billion euros allocated in the period to suppliers and other national operators.

The agreement also provides that the shipyard will be used for the construction of Greek military vessels and for the maintenance of naval units that are already part of the fleet of the Athens Navy.

"The reopening of the Eleusis construction sites and the recovery of the national shipbuilding industry - underlined the minister Development and Investment, Adonis Georgiadis - represent a big national bet that has begun with ONEX for the Syros shipyards, where in November 2019 it was officially resumed the activity and where I met for the first time the workers of Eleusis who had come for the inauguration of the Syros shipyard and we were asked for a similar project for the Eleusis shipyards'. "It's a too bad - concluded the minister - that Greece is a great empowers in global maritime transport and cannot play a role in the shipbuilding industry. For these reasons today, for us, it is A historic day».

In his speech on the occasion of today's signing, the Minister of the National Defense, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, pointed out that "There is no doubt that this agreement is the only one that can To bring a solution to the problem of construction sites which, I would remind you, It has been going on for several decades without a solution." The Minister has highlighted that the prospect of relaunching national shipyards "It therefore also has a great positive impact on the industry. National Defense Team, since we are in the final phase of the Decision on military shipbuilding programmes of essential national importance. We have said that a condition necessary, that we - the government - make it a condition essential, is that some of these are built in the Greek shipyards, which will also take care of maintenance of the ships of the fleet which need it'.

Panagiotopoulos also noted that investors in the Greek shipbuilding industry will multiply when it comes reached an agreement for the construction of ships for the Navy Greek military. In this regard, referring to the investment of ONEX in the shipyard of Eleusis, the minister specified that in view of the construction of ships for the Greek Navy Support 'in all likelihood' will be from "a large foreign shipbuilding company". Several Observers have identified this company in the Italian Fincantieri, which has already expressed its interest in contribute to the activity of the Eleusis shipyard. Just last October 12, among other things, a series of memorandum of understanding that Fincantieri has signed with a selection of potential new suppliers within the framework of the programme of the Hellenic Minister of Defence for the construction of four corvettes and the provision of Integrated Logistic services Support and In Service Support ( of 12 October 2022).