Georgia’s strategic location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia has long positioned the country as a key transit hub for regional and international trade. To explore the current challenges and opportunities in Georgia’s transport and logistics sector, we spoke with Tamaz Chkhikvishvili, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of JSC Poti New Terminals Corporation and a key figure with over 30 years of experience in the country’s port and transport industry. In this in-depth discussion, he shares his insights on Georgia’s transit function, port development strategy, infrastructure priorities, investment considerations, and the practical realities of operating and expanding maritime and logistics networks, including the role of existing and planned deep-water ports.
Georgia’s Transit Function and Strategic Importance
When asked about the main challenges facing Georgia’s transit function today, Chkhikvishvili emphasizes the historical significance of the country as a crossroads of international trade. “As you know, Georgia has always been an important part of international commerce. Numerous trade routes intersect here, making the country strategically significant. The government has adopted the National Transport and Logistics Strategy for 2023-2030, but the military conflicts in the region over the last two years have further highlighted the importance of Georgia’s transit potential,” he says.
Chkhikvishvili stresses the need for rapidly implementable, realistic infrastructure projects. He recommends that a public discussion be held with the participation of all companies operating in transport and logistics, and that the resulting recommendations serve as the basis for amendments to the national strategy. “The current government inherited a difficult legacy, and significant effort will be required to implement adequate changes to the national strategy. The decisions made now will define the country’s transport potential for decades,” he says.
Does Georgia Need Two Deep-Water Ports?
On the question of whether Georgia needs two deep-water ports, Chkhikvishvili says he would frame the question differently. “I would ask it this way: at the current stage, is the partial northward expansion of Poti port, financed entirely by a private investor’s own funds, a more realistic and economically justified decision than the construction of the Anaklia deep-water port using significant budget funds?”
He notes that the main goal of Georgia’s infrastructure development is not simply the ability to construct a deep-water berth. “The decisive factor is whether the regional economy can generate sufficient cargo flows to ensure the regular loading of such infrastructure. Otherwise, any deep-water berth will turn into expensive infrastructure with limited utilization,” he explains.
The Structure of Black Sea Cargo Flows
To put his position in concrete terms, Chkhikvishvili describes the specific characteristics of the Black Sea container and dry bulk segments.
“The Black Sea container segment has one important characteristic: it is mostly built on the feeder, meaning regional, transport model. Even at today’s volumes, the majority of container lines calling at Poti and Batumi use vessels with a capacity of 800 to 2,500 TEU, which connect Georgian ports to major regional hubs such as Constanta, Istanbul, Piraeus, and other Mediterranean ports. The main oceanic container services are concentrated at those hubs, while Georgian ports serve as regional distribution nodes,” he explains.
Chkhikvishvili notes that container turnover grew by five percent in 2025 compared to the previous year. However, he argues that growth in container volumes does not by itself indicate the need for a deep-water port capable of receiving large oceanic container vessels of 8,000 TEU capacity and above.
On the technical side, he points out that container vessels in the 3,000 to 4,500 TEU range have a maximum draft of 11 to 12.5 meters requiring berth depths of 13 to 14 meters. This is already the accepted standard for many Black Sea container terminals, and allows for the reception of Panamax feeder class vessels, which form the backbone of the regional feeder fleet. “The development of Poti’s container infrastructure within these depth parameters corresponds to the real structure of container shipping in the region,” he says.
Turning to dry bulk cargo, he notes that the Black Sea dry bulk market is traditionally oriented toward the transportation of grain, coal, petroleum coke, mineral fertilizers and other bulk goods in batches of 40,000 to 50,000 tons. Handymax and Supramax class vessels, with deadweight tonnages of approximately 40,000 to 60,000 tons, have a draft of roughly 11 to 12 meters, which also requires berth depths in the 13- to 14-meter range.
“The main export batches will remain in the range of approximately 30,000 to 50,000 tons, which is typical of many Caucasus and Central Asian cargoes. In that scenario, the main working vessels will continue to be Handymax and Supramax class ships,” he says.
Based on this analysis, Chkhikvishvili concludes that there is no near-term requirement for 16.5-meter-deep berths to accommodate Panamax-class and larger vessels.
A Note on the Strategy Document
Chkhikvishvili also draws attention to a passage in the government’s own strategy document. Among the listed government measures is an objective described as convincing potential users, including freight forwarders, shipping lines, cargo owners, consignees, and road transport companies, of the commercial and technical utility and cost advantages of the new facility.
“In other words, we decided to build the port first, and now we are trying to convince users that they need it. The causal relationship should be the other way around,” he says.
On this basis, he concludes that “at this stage and in the foreseeable future, the need for the Anaklia deep-water port mega-project is not justified.”
Comparing the Two Projects: Investment, Timeline, and Risk
Chkhikvishvili notes that berth depth and cargo growth projections alone are not sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. Investment structure, project delivery timeline, and commercial risk must all be taken into account.
Investment: The Poti port expansion project will be financed by APM Terminals, representing $250 million in direct private foreign investment with no call on the state budget. The Anaklia port project, by contrast, requires the Georgian state to commit the equivalent amount from public funds in exchange for a 51 percent stake in the project.
Timeline: The northward expansion of Poti port is estimated to take approximately two years. The existing internal port infrastructure and the operational customs processing economic zone allow new berths to be integrated into the functioning port relatively quickly. There are also no privately owned land plots to be expropriated in the case of Poti’s expansion.
The future operator of the new berths would be APM Terminals, the current operator of Poti port. APM Terminals would itself help ensure stability of container cargo flows through the involvement of Maersk, a freight forwarding company within the same holding group.
Anaklia, by contrast, would be constructed from scratch. Maritime and port services infrastructure would need to be built from the ground up. Qualified personnel would need to be recruited. To date, no authoritative port operator has been identified for the project. “As construction practice shows, very often in projects of this scale, due to various circumstances, calendar plans are frequently violated and timelines are extended,” Chkhikvishvili says. He also notes that it is not yet known what cargo flows are expected at the future Anaklia port, or from which sources.
Commercial Risk: In the case of the Poti expansion, commercial risk is borne by APM Terminals. In the case of Anaklia, commercial risk is borne by the Georgian state.
Taking all of these factors together, Chkhikvishvili states that “the realization of the Poti port expansion project is beyond competition across all parameters.” He adds, however, that the Anaklia question is not closed permanently: “When additional cargo appears and the existing port infrastructure can no longer handle the cargo flows, and when Georgian Railways supports the delivery of tens of millions of tons to the ports, the issue of building Anaklia port will inevitably come onto the agenda.”
On the Advantages Listed in the Strategy
The national strategy document highlights five advantages for the Anaklia project: strategic location, the capacity to receive large vessels (Panamax class), one-stop-shop service, high throughput capacity, and the possibility of safe navigation year-round. Chkhikvishvili addresses each of these.
On strategic location, he notes that the new port would be situated 5 to 7 kilometers from the border of a conflict zone, and says that whether this constitutes a strategic advantage is a matter for the reader to judge.
On the capacity to receive large vessels, he refers to his earlier technical analysis on vessel classes and required draft depths.
On the remaining three points, he states that these conditions exist equally at existing Black Sea ports in Georgia and cannot be resolved through organizational or administrative measures alone. He concludes that “all these so-called advantages must be weighed against a high-risk investment of state budget funds.”
Infrastructure Beyond the Port: Industrial Zones, Tariffs, and Governance
When asked what else could be improved to make Georgia’s transport corridor more effective, Chkhikvishvili says that the long-term success of port infrastructure is not determined solely by water depth, berth length, and terminal throughput capacity.
“The decisive factor is the formation of an industrial-logistics cluster around the port, which ensures a stable cargo base. Global experience in the development of seaports shows that the most successful port zones develop not as simple warehouse territories, but as full-fledged industrial-logistics ecosystems,” he says.
As an illustration, he points to Poti’s Free Industrial Zone, which occupies 300 hectares, is directly adjacent to the sea, and has been in operation since 2009. According to Chkhikvishvili, foreign investors and cargo owners have not shown adequate interest in it, and the zone has not been operating at full capacity. “To this day, there is no logical connection between the sea and the land, and nobody has addressed this,” he says. He notes that similar trends of declining investment are visible in other territories designated as industrial zones across Georgia.
On the cost side, Chkhikvishvili states that Georgian ports are among the most expensive in the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara basin by vessel servicing costs, also referred to as disbursements. In a number of cases, port service tariffs lack transparency. “The combination of high tariffs, trade imbalance and prolonged waiting time at berths is a factor that hinders the attraction of additional cargo flows to ports,” he says. High tariffs on rail and road transport compound the issue further.
He recommends accelerating the adoption of European standards for financial transparency in the port sector. He cites EU Directive 2017/352 as a good example of what he calls light-touch regulation, which, in his view, delivers greater transparency in the port services sector while maintaining a liberal policy environment.
On the question of governance, Chkhikvishvili notes the absence of a dedicated Ministry of Transport and says the government needs to more clearly define the role and responsibilities of those accountable for attracting cargo from different regions. “These functions have been delegated to the railway and the ports, which is genuinely insufficient,” he says. He also acknowledges that some challenges are external and not entirely within Georgia’s control.
Transit Territory or Transit Organiser
Chkhikvishvili closes by drawing a distinction he says defines Georgia’s current position and the choice it faces. “All the surrounding countries are trying to be transit organizers. Georgia, meanwhile, remains a transit territory, and that must be corrected,” he says.
In his view, the difference between a transit territory and a transit organizer lies in who controls the logistics agenda, captures the value-added services, and builds the commercial relationships around the movement of goods. Addressing this, he argues, requires the right infrastructure choices, transparent and competitive tariff conditions, functioning industrial-logistics zones, and a clear institutional mandate at the state level to compete for cargo flows from neighboring regions.
By Kesaria Katcharava
