Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has announced that the country’s first deep-sea port in Anaklia will receive its first vessel by 2029, possibly even earlier. Construction work has already begun, and the official opening ceremony took place on October 22. In the first stage, the Belgian company Jan De Nul will deepen the seabed to create conditions for receiving large-tonnage vessels.
The port will be directly built by the Chinese-Singaporean consortium China Communications Construction Company, with which an agreement will be signed soon. Investments in the first phase of the project, designed for a throughput of 600 thousand containers per year, will amount to $ 600 million. Anaklia is expected to become a key hub capable of receiving large vessels, which was previously difficult for the ports of Batumi and Poti.
This is already the second attempt to build a port in Anaklia. In 2016, the project was launched by a Georgian-American consortium, but the agreement was terminated in 2020. In December 2022, the Georgian government announced plans to complete the project with the participation of the state, which will own 51% of the port’s shares, with the remaining 49% being transferred to private investors through an international tender.