Exclusive! The New Port in Tymbaki
By Yannis Samatas
In an unexpected press release, the Minister of Mercantile Marine Mr. Manolis Kefaloyiannis, announced late last night that all the preliminary studies for the new port in the south of Crete have been completed in 4 months, a record time for a project that is going to cost more than 600 million Euro.
In the next month, Mr. Kefaloyiannis, together with a team of technical experts including the Prime Minister’s financial adviser, will travel to Beijing to finalise the agreement between Greek and the Chinese governments. The agreement will be signed later, probably during the visit of the Prime Minister of China, which is expected in late June.
In the satellite image below, a red arrow points to the location where the new port will be built. The location is less than 1 km far from the nearest town of Tymbaki and 60 km south of Heraklion.
One million containers will be shipped here from China and will be re-distributed to the countries of the South-East Mediterranean and the Balkan Peninsula.
In the computer generated image below, you can see a model of the new port in southern Crete. The red arrow points to the new highway which will connect the north to the south coast of Crete. Part of the new highway has been already constructed and it makes the trip to the south faster and safer. The rest of the road is expected to be completed in less than 2 years. Driving to the south will take only 35 minutes compared to 75 minutes today.
The area where the new port will be built is occupied by the military airport of Tymbaki. The minister announced that procedures, from de-militarising the area and allowing its commercial use, have already begun.
“We are proud to announce this huge project”, Mr Kefaloyiannis stated and he continued that “This is the largest development project in Greece of recent decades and it will transform the south coast of Crete for ever. The government of Nea Dimokratia and I personally are proud that we have managed to bring the gift of development to this remote area of Crete. We envisage this area becoming the commercial and shipping centre of the South-East Mediterranean with all the benefits that this port will bring to the people of Crete and Greece”.
Reactions from the affected local communities are not known yet, while opposition from the environmental groups of Crete is expected to be severe. For more news, please visit Crete Gazette again later.
April Fool’s Day
We are glad to announce that this story is 100% fake because it was published on April 1, Fool’s Day! We are happy we can still joke with stories like this and let’s hope that it will be so for many more years
Yannis and Louis