^ I am not sure your facts are correct. Japan is second after Greece.
Greek ship owners (not always with a greek flag, and not always headquartered in Greece, so not taxed by greek government) own the 18% of the world naval fleet (in terms of cargo capacity).
Top 20 World Merchant Fleets by
Country of Owner http://www.immigration-usa.com/world_fleet.html
And also (ppt)
http://www.cefor.no/news/IUMI/2006%2...e%20Forsmo.ppt
(check slide 10)
and the greek fleet is the first in terms of growth (in actual numbers, not percentage)
http://www.isl.org/products_services...2005-short.pdf
(Germany and China are developing very fast)
And an article from the Economist (through a ... chinese site) about greek shipping companies (around 730 of them!!!, usually small)
http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Greek-stocks.html