On 9 September, the Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC) released a statement in which it claimed that the Georgian government ran a campaign to undermine the project by dissuading potential project investors, lenders, contractors and suppliers from joining the project in order to kill the development, reported agenda.ge.
The ADC Supervisory Board stated that infrastructure projects of such scale require government support while the Georgian government strangled ADC’s ability to develop the Anaklia Port project and ‘destroyed a project the government itself originally sponsored. “Is it beyond coincidence that government ministers – including two prime ministers - who voiced support for the project or otherwise expressed concern about the growing controversy with the project tendered their resignations shortly after such comments were made?” further read the statement.
The statement also emphasized that the damage to Georgia caused by the government goes well beyond the potential loss of the Anaklia Port and the associated Special Economic Zone. “The conduct of the government is scaring away investors at a time when Georgia cannot afford to lose any more foreign investment. According to the National Statistics Office of Georgia, the amount of foreign direct investment in Georgia has fallen from nearly $2 billion in 2017 to just over $1.3 billion in 2019, and in the first quarter of 2020, stood at only $171.8 million - a catastrophic decrease even before the Covid crisis began to take effect,” the statement added.
The latest development on the Anaklia Deep Sea Port project was on 17 February, when Georgian economic minister Natia Turnava stated that the Port remained a priority for the country's economy and that the government was looking for the involvement of American or European investors in the project (Caucasus Watch reported). On 12 February, the ADC released a public statement, which read that the consortium will go for international arbitration with the Government of Georgia in regard to the port. The investment agreement between the Georgian government and the ADC was officially cancelled on 9 January 2020 (Caucasus Watch reported).
