ATHENS – Essentially untaxed, apart from some contributions and largely flying Flags of Convenience from other countries, Greece’s shipping tycoons who rule the seas said regulations would impede further investments.

The used their world’s largest shipping sector exhibition, Posidonia 2022, to complain that putting conditions on the sector would hamper them, not wanting more government or other regulations.

Citing uncertainty about that, Ioannis Martinos, CEO of The Signal Group, told a forum that: “Policy-makers should be more decisive. Shipowners need clarity, they are not chemists. Scientists and policy-makers need to guide them and tell them which direction they should move toward.”

He left his position as co-chief executive of Thenamaris, the Greek shipping company founded by his family, to start his own business, shippers saying that regulations and pressure to reduce carbons are leading to new technologies for energy efficiency, said Kathimerini.

Spyros Karampampas of the Association of Innovative Application Companies (SEKE) said remarks from Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, European Union officials and top shippers “made it abundantly clear that the shipping industry must focus on digitization and new innovative technologies for decarbonization and optimization purposes.”

The British valuation and market intelligence company VesselsValue published a report on the evolution of Greek ship ownership in the four years since the last event held before the COVID-19 pandemic struck hard.

The report showed the oligarchs have increased their vessels by 11 percent, buying 474 more and have 4,766, with their value soaring 92 percent and now worth $158.97 million, almost double the $82.85 billion in 2018.