Anaklia without China: Georgia becomes its own port investor

Anaklia has lost its second anchor investor in a decade and gained a state owner. On 6 July Georgia's economy minister, Mariam Kvrivishvili, announced that the deep-sea port will be developed under a "landlord model": the state owns and builds the core maritime infrastructure and leases terminals to operators. The announcement did not name the Chinese-led consortium chosen in 2024, which, Jamestown reports, withdrew without ever signing an investment agreement. The change removes a political argument about who controls the port. It does not settle who pays for it, or who fills it.

How the Chinese deal ended

The project has changed shape three times. A Georgian-American group, the Anaklia Development Consortium, won the original contract in 2016; the government cancelled it in 2020, and the consortium later lost its arbitration claim. In 2024 Georgia selected China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and its Singapore-registered subsidiary China Harbour Investment as partner for a 49% stake, with the state keeping 51%. The then economy minister put first-phase investment at $600m. That phase was to handle 600,000 containers, or 7.8 million tonnes, a year.

The deal drew objections in Washington. CCCC has been subject to US Treasury restrictions since 2021 over ties to China's military-industrial sector, In 2025 members of the US Helsinki Commission voiced concern about the choice, and the House of Representatives passed the MEGOBARI bill, which added pressure on Tbilisi not to hand the port to Chinese state companies. As late as April 2026, Interfax noted that the government had still not declared the consortium the tender winner. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said that month that "interest certainly persists" and that talks were continuing. Rumours of a Chinese exit circulated from November 2025, but OC Media could not obtain confirmation from officials, Chinese ones included, at the time. Kvrivishvili said in July that she still hoped the Chinese side would take part as a partner.

What the landlord model changes

Under the new model the state builds the breakwater, dredges the basin and pays for road and rail access, all of which were already its obligations. It also takes on berths, utilities and other core infrastructure that had been assigned to the investor. Kvrivishvili put total investment at about $1.1bn and said the state would need to find nearly $200m more than planned. Funding is to come from the budget and international financial institutions. The 2024 structure had counted on roughly $600m of foreign direct investment; that inflow is gone. Container and bulk terminals will be leased to private operators; she said several Western countries were interested but gave no names.

The model is standard for large ports and has clear advantages: no single foreign owner, competition between terminal operators, and freedom to phase construction to demand. Its cost is that the state now bears most of the construction risk that the 2024 structure had passed to an investor. Georgia plans to spend $7bn on strategic transport infrastructure by 2032, including Anaklia, the railway and high-speed roads. Civic IDEA's Tinatin Khidasheli, quoted by Jamestown, argued that the lack of a strategic investor also means no partner obliged to guarantee cargo.

What is being built

Construction is real. Belgium's Jan De Nul won the maritime works tender in 2024, and the government cut the contract's cost by $52.5m, or 25%, early this year. The minister formally launched the maritime works in early May, with rock and breakwater X-blocks already in production. The trailing suction hopper dredger Tristão da Cunha started work in August, and a second dredger, Al-Idrisi, was due by the end of the month. The basin is to be deepened to 17.5 metres behind a breakwater of about 1,380 metres (the ministry's latest figure is 1,376 metres). That will allow up to 700 metres of deep-water container berths and up to 600 metres of jetty berths for dry and bulk cargo. The target for the first vessel is 2029.

The cargo question

The numbers on the corridor side are smaller than the port. Kazakhstan's transport ministry reports that the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route carried 4.48 million tonnes in 2024 and 4.12 million tonnes in 2025, including about 77,000 TEU of containers in 2025. The target is 300,000 TEU by 2029. Anaklia's first phase, as sized in the 2024 plan, is 600,000 containers a year. Even if the corridor hits its 2029 target, and even if every box came through Georgia, Middle Corridor traffic would fill at most half of that. The rest would have to come from Georgian and regional trade, which already has a port.

That port is Poti. APM Terminals handled a record 404,760 TEU there in January–July 2026, up 7% year on year, and Poti carries about 80% of Georgia's container traffic. The operator expects new equipment to lift capacity above 650,000 TEU, and in June the US International Development Finance Corporation signed a second $25m loan to PACE Group for a new seaport at Poti. Kazakhstan has also launched its own 120,000 TEU terminal at Poti. The government cites a 21% rise in cargo turnover through Georgia in January–April 2026 and 46% over four years. Those are real gains, but much of that growth can be absorbed by capacity already being added at Poti.

Anaklia's distinct advantage is depth. It is the only planned Georgian port able to take Panamax and post-Panamax ships, which now call in Türkiye or Russia. That matters for direct intercontinental calls, but only if shipping lines choose to route larger vessels into the eastern Black Sea, and only if rail links through Azerbaijan and Central Asia can move the boxes inland.

Who might commit

Central Asian governments are the most active suitors. Uzbek investment and transport ministers toured the site on 4 July and said Uzbekistan wanted a presence in Georgia's transport infrastructure, citing expected cargo from the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway. Kvrivishvili met Kazakhstan's transport minister in June. The minister also named China, Azerbaijan and Gulf states as interested. A terminal lease taken by a state that controls its own cargo, as Kazakhstan has done at Poti, would do more for Anaklia's economics than a larger equity stake by a builder.

The test for the coming year is simple to state. Georgia should secure at least one signed terminal concession with a cargo commitment attached before the state's additional $200m is spent on berths. Without that, the dredging and breakwater will create a harbour that the country owns outright, and must also finance, maintain and fill on its own.

Sources

• Civil Georgia — Anaklia port to be developed by Georgian state under 'landlord model', Kvrivishvili says
• Jamestown Foundation — Georgia's Anaklia pivots to state ownership
• OC Media — China pulls out of Anaklia port, Georgia to take over development
• Interfax — Georgia to resume talks with China on participation in Anaklia port construction
• Dredging Today — Another Jan De Nul dredger arrives for Anaklia project
• Dredging Today — Georgia launches construction phase of Anaklia Deep Sea Port
• The Astana Times — Trans-Caspian transport route cargo volumes increase fivefold in seven years
• In-Supply — Poti container throughput reaches record 404,760 TEU