Levan Akhvlediani does not believe APM plans to invest in Poti Port
Director of Anaklia Consortium Levan Akhvlediani does not believe that APM Terminal plans to invest in Poti Port.
However, Akhvlediani says that despite this, we have to wait for events, because anything is possible.
"I do not believe in the APM terminal’s announcement, but we have to wait for things to happen. I did not say that the government should not meet representatives of APM Terminals, as it is an organization that has been in Georgia for a long time, but in this case the position of what the state is doing should be stated.
Unfortunately, I don't think Poti has the potential to offer such a large scale and strategic location like Anaklia. The Anaklia project has no competitors in this regard today. Let's see how the government can balance this. This will show once again their real look and real attitude towards this issue. Georgia does not need two deep water ports for container shipping today, there is no commercially justified amount for it”, Akhvlediani said.
He also responded to the statement of Natia Turnava, the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, who said that the government was aware of the desire of the APM-terminal company to expand Poti port, but they had not yet formally applied to the government.
“An elementary analysis can determine whether the Georgian market is large and whether two deep-water ports are needed. One of our demands was that there were no two deep-water ports. I'm sure APM Terminal has the same position and why the Minister is talking about two full-fledged ports, I don't know. Ms. Natia probably needs more analysis. I can't tell if this means more support for APM Terminals. The government has a very interesting position now, on the one hand, expressing interest and bidding on the port of Anaklia and on the other hand, the APM Terminal announces its desire to build an existing port. Therefore, these two are contradictory and we must observe how the government will balance this situation and how it will conduct the Anaklia tender. This dispute also prevents the unfortunate high-profile investors from getting involved in the process, when there is a claim for the construction of a second deep-water port, and I think this makes the task even more difficult”, says Akhvlediani.
