Anaklia now has dates: dredging to 17.5 metres this year, first phase working by 2029

Dredging at Anaklia began this year under the Belgian contractor Jan De Nul, with the access channel being deepened to 17.5 metres and a turning basin formed, work reported as running through the end of 2026. A breakwater of about 1,380 metres is being built alongside, with completion set for the end of 2027. The depth is the point: it is what allows Panamax and larger container ships to call at all.

The first construction phase is described as complete in 2029, handling at least 600,000 containers a year, with a second phase targeting at least a million by 2035. The commercial logic is the Middle Corridor: freight moving between Europe and Central Asia across the Black and Caspian Seas, avoiding both Russian transit and the Suez route. Whether volumes arrive on that scale depends on the rest of the corridor, not on the port alone.

A working port changes local demand through jobs, warehousing, road traffic and services, and those effects arrive gradually as the phases complete rather than on the day a contract is signed. For land or housing in the Samegrelo coastal strip, the honest reading is that 2029 is the first date at which port operations could plausibly support rent, which is a long hold for anything bought on the story today. Buyers should also weigh what a construction site next door does to a holiday let in the meantime.