Anaklia's first ships are now expected in 2029, and the rail link goes to tender this month

The first phase is expected to be complete by 2029 and the first vessels to enter that year, according to the prime minister on 7 October. Georgia is building it as a landlord port: the state builds and owns the basic infrastructure, while private or international partners operate the individual terminals. That structure is worth understanding before anyone reads the project as a government guarantee of cargo volumes. The state is providing the harbour; the commercial risk on each terminal sits with whoever wins it.

Breakwater construction and dredging are both in progress. Reporting from early September put roughly one kilometre of the breakwater base in place, with dredging started in the entrance and turning channels, and a second dredger joining the first. The design figures give the scale: a breakwater of 1,376 metres and a seabed deepened to about 17.5 metres, deep enough for some of the largest vessels working the Black Sea. The dredging is being carried out by the Belgian contractor Jan De Nul, and the overall project has been valued at 2.5 billion dollars with the state holding 51% since 2022.

Design is finished for an 18 km railway section connecting the port to the national network, the World Bank has launched a market study, and a tender was expected by the end of the month. A container port without a rail connection is a lorry park, so the tender timetable is a better progress signal than photographs of dredgers. The prime minister also said ship reception procedures have been cut from 24 hours to one across Georgian ports, which he linked to cargo traffic growth of around 30%.

Treat 2029 as a target rather than a delivery date, and watch the rail tender and the terminal operators rather than the headline investment number. A working port draws warehousing, trucking yards, worker housing and the services around them, and those are what change land values in Samegrelo long before any container is lifted. The cut from 204 to 153 million dollars on the infrastructure contract is reported as a saving for the state, not a reduction in scope, but it is a reminder that the numbers on this project have moved before and may move again.