By George Katcharava
The Georgian government is radically restructuring the development model for its flagship deep-sea port at Anaklia, turning to a 100 per cent state-funded framework in a bid to bypass geopolitical gridlock and accelerate the expansion of the "Middle Corridor" trade route.
The pivot, detailed by Economy Minister Mariam Kvrivishvili, sees Tbilisi abandon a long-delayed equity joint venture model with a Chinese state-led consortium. Instead, Georgia will adopt a classic European "landlord" model. The state will fund and retain absolute ownership of the core maritime infrastructure, including the harbor basin and breakwaters, while leasing individual specialized cargo and container terminals to international private operators and regional partner states.
The decision represents a significant gamble on the country’s sovereign balance sheet. However, policymakers view it as a necessary tactical shift to navigate intense great-power competition over Black Sea logistics, while capturing a larger share of the shifting supply chains between Asia and Europe.
Unlocking the Bottleneck
For nearly a decade, the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), the so-called Middle Corridor, has been touted as the premier alternative to Russia’s northern transit lines. Yet its commercial viability has been consistently undermined by a critical infrastructure bottleneck, one of which is Georgia’s lack of a deep-water port capable of receiving large Panamax-class container ships. Currently, regional maritime trade must rely on shallower, capacity-constrained facilities at Poti and Batumi ports.
By decoupling the foundational marine engineering from tortuous, politically sensitive negotiations with foreign equity partners, Tbilisi is attempting to jump-start the stalled project. The government has already contracted Belgian marine engineering specialist Jan De Nul N.V. to deepen the harbor basin to 17.5 metres. This will ensure that the initial phase, aimed at a capacity of 600,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), can progress under Western technical standards.
Crucially, the lease-based structure transforms Anaklia from a rigid, bilateral gateway into a flexible, multilateral logistics hub. Under this framework, Tbilisi gains the diplomatic latitude to offer dedicated terminal concessions directly to landlocked Central Asian states, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Giving these nations direct operational control over Black Sea terminals creates a powerful commercial incentive for them to structurally divert their European export volumes away from Russian territory. When synchronized with a planned 18-kilometre dedicated rail link and an ongoing modernization of Georgian Railways, the open-access port is designed to drastically reduce transit times across the Eurasian continent.
A Sophisticated Hedging Strategy
The ownership structure of Anaklia carries immense international stakes, sitting at the literal crosswinds of Western, Russian, and Chinese spheres of influence. Retaining total state ownership serves as a calculated geopolitical hedging strategy designed to neutralize external pressures and preserve Georgia's strategic autonomy.
The policy shift heavily alters the role of the People's Republic of China. While the Chinese state corporation CCCC was previously designated as the preferred investor and positioned to take a 49 per cent equity stake, the landlord model ensures that no foreign state enterprise can secure a permanent structural foothold or veto power on Georgia's strategic coastline. Chinese logistics companies remain fully eligible to bid on terminal leases to capture Belt and Road trade volumes, but they will operate strictly as tenants subject to Georgian jurisdiction.
Concurrently, this model addresses deep-seated concerns from Washington and Brussels regarding the prospect of Chinese dominance over a critical Black Sea node. By keeping the core asset entirely in state hands, Georgia effectively insulates its maritime sector from potential secondary sanctions risks linked to blacklisted foreign entities. Furthermore, maintaining a transparent, European-style landlord framework keeps the door open for Western development capital, including potential alignment with the European Union's Global Gateway initiative.
Finally, a state-owned, globally accessible port enhances Georgia’s resilience against economic coercion from the Russian Federation. By creating a neutral, international infrastructure utility, Tbilisi avoids becoming a direct battleground for great-power confrontation, successfully using multilateral commercial interests as a protective buffer.
Fiscal Risks and Value Capture
From a macroeconomic perspective, financing Anaklia through public funds significantly alters Georgia's fiscal and developmental trajectory. This approach demands substantial upfront capital outlays from the national budget, which stands in stark contrast to the old equity-consortium model where fiscal risks were shared with foreign investors at the cost of prolonged negotiation delays.
However, the long-term economic returns of the landlord model are exponentially higher than an equity-split arrangement. Instead of splitting profits according to equity shares and yielding minor direct returns for the state budget, 100 per cent of terminal lease fees, concession rents, and maritime duties will now flow directly into the Georgian treasury.
Furthermore, this model changes how the country extracts value from international trade. Under a traditional consortium, logistics management and secondary processing are frequently controlled by foreign partners. The landlord model, by contrast, allows Georgia to integrate the port directly with the adjacent Free Industrial Zone, keeping light manufacturing, warehousing, and secondary logistics processing within the domestic economy.
Ultimately, by engineering the port to handle Panamax vessels, Georgia will lower regional freight costs and scale its container throughput toward a projected 1 million TEUs by 2035. While the initial phase requires highly disciplined fiscal management of the state's multi-billion dollar infrastructure package, it ensures that the revenue generated by global supply chains remains at home, transforming deep-water access into a permanent engine for domestic employment and gross domestic product growth.
Outlook: The Execution Risk
The decision to retain full state ownership of Anaklia is a pragmatic pivot that solves immediate geopolitical and operational deadlocks. It allows construction to move forward under European technical guidance while avoiding the long-term strategic vulnerabilities associated with a single foreign investor.
However, the ultimate success of this strategy hinges entirely on execution risk during the subsequent terminal lease tenders. Georgia must successfully attract a diverse, competitive mix of Central Asian exporters, global container shipping lines, and Western logistics operators. If Tbilisi can pull off this balancing act, Anaklia will establish itself as the indispensable maritime anchor of the Middle Corridor.
Autor’s Bio: George Katcharava is a founder of eurasiaanalyst.com ,geopolitical risk and advisory firm
