STRATEGIST

In November last year the Tbilisi International Film Festival featured a documentary film entitled, The Port that Never Was. It refers, of course, to the proposed new deep-sea port of Anaklia on Georgia’s Black Sea coast.

Undoubtedly, the film was conceived in the wake of the government cancellation of the then latest incarnation of the Anaklia Port project, led by the Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC). It did so alleging that ADC had failed to secure sufficient investments while at the same time placing sizable and unrealistic demands on the state to underwrite large loans from international finance sources. The original idea was that the state would invest US$100 million and the private sector the rest.

However, the project was canned - the latest in a number of struggle to fill their ships. No doubt MSC will be a strong competitor.

Most of the large carriers are already sending out warning signals about their 2023 revenues, with Maersk indicating a drop of over 80 per cent. Japan’s ONE, meanwhile, recorded a 50 per cent quarter-on-quarter drop in

The port sector will suffer revenue losses compared to 2022 as increasing numbers of ships fail to be visible due to missed sailings and temporary lay-ups. Cargo volumes in the first half of this year will be substantially down with growth coming in the third quarter. It remains to be seen whether that growth will be mild or explosive out of recovery. The war in the Ukraine will likely play a role in helping to determine this. We should also be careful with the port statistics from China which seem to pretend that there is no significant drop volumes. Back to the old strategy of State misinformation.

Batten down the hatches!