British Company to Develop Anaklia Urban Planning Concept

On February 23, ‘Anaklia City’ presented the Anaklia Visionary Master Planning and Development Plan study to be developed by leading British company BuroHappold Engineering, the winner of an international tender.

‘Anaklia City’ executed a contract with the British company, under which BuroHappold Engineering is to prepare the economic analysis, feasibility study and master plan for Anaklia city.

The presentation opened by Mamuka Khazaradze, the founder of ‘Anaklia City,’ was attended by government officials, diplomats and business persons.

Addressing the audience, BuroHappold Engineering representatives spoke about their experience in the field.

“We became convinced of the pace and magnitude of this remarkable project and we think it will greatly contribute to regional development and to the nation’s overall economic development,” said Robert Winterhager, Group Director Cities at BurroHappold Engineering.

“To become a regional landmark, Anaklia city is to rely on the two pillars: cutting-edge technologies and green economy,” said Keti Bochorishvili, ‘Anaklia City’ Executive Director. “We are glad to have the opportunity to work with one of the world’s key companies. The concept is to be developed within 6 months, during which ‘Anaklia City’ will be discussing the concept at meetings with target groups.”

BuroHappold Engineering has already started to work on the Anaklia city urban planning concept and had meetings with several government agencies, including the Economy and Finance Ministries.

On February 22, the Company’s experts arrived in Anaklia for preliminary investigation. For the purpose of the spatial planning, they examined the territory and the Anaklia port construction works.

BuroHappold Engineering, one of the world’s key urban planning and construction companies, works worldwide. In Britain, Europe, Asia and the USA, it has implemented over 600 projects, such as the sea port complex in Mumbai, London’s Hyde Park, the Technological University in California.

At the February 23 meeting, Anaklia City officials summed up the company’s works so far.

Anaklia City took on development of the city and the special economic zone in June 2017. To date, it has forged ties with over 100 international companies, many of those now its partners. Collaboration agreements have been signed with Incheon Free Economic Zone (South Korea), Khorgos Special Economic Zone (Kazakhstan), and international logistics and forwarding companies, such as the South Korean “Pantos Logistics” and the Austrian Gebrüder Weiss. Talks are underway with a number of giant e-commerce companies. At the meetings with its partners, “Anaklia City” is now promoting the economic potential of the city, the economic zone and, in broader terms, that of Georgia.

GEORGIA TODAY contacted Anaklia City to find out more information about the project.

Could you please tell us more details about the Anaklia Visionary Master Planning and Development Plan?

Anaklia City had announced tender for the study. More than 40 international consulting and engineering companies participated in tender process. Buro Happold Engineering Company in consortium with Moffat & Nichol has been chosen to develop the economic analyses, demand analyses and masterplan of Anaklia. Anaklia visionary master planning document will be developed in next 6 months.

Do you hope to develop Anaklia into a new industrial center of Georgia, or will this development be more holistic?

Our overall goal is to develop the Anaklia City/Special Economic Zone as a brand new city and frontier destination for foreign companies, encompassing different industries and business clusters within the zone. At the initial stage we will focus on development of the industrial and logistics parks which are essential sectors to benefit from being adjacent to the new modern and state of the art port infrastructure. Simultaneously, we will continue to work on assessing and developing the other clusters such as financial, retail, entertainment and tourism, education, healthcare and residential. This is the reason BuroHappold Engineering have come on board to develop the visionary master plan for the territory of about 2,000 ha and proposing a long-term strategy to work on city-scale mixed-used development. In addition to the economic and master planning studies, we are working on the legal framework to ensure that our hard and soft infrastructure will be attractive and favorable for different industrial and service businesses.

What makes Anaklia unique and profitable for investors?

Firstly, Anaklia SEZ will offer the same incentives which Georgia offers as a country and one of the easiest destinations for doing business in the world. It includes competitive costs of doing business (dealing with bureaucracy, labor costs and utilities costs), low tax burden system (8th in the world according to the WEF report) and most importantly, tariff free access to the largest consumer markets in the world with a population of over 2 billion people through existing Free Trade Agreements with the EU28, China, EFTA countries, CIS region and Turkey.

On top of that, Anaklia will offer unique advantages in terms of infrastructure. It will be adjacent to the newest and state of the art Anaklia Deep Sea Port, connected to all other modes of transportation with newly developed rail and road connections integrated into the national networks, and with access to the International Kutaisi Airport located less than 90km from the project site. Furthermore, the Anaklia SEZ will offer modern hard and soft infrastructure to be developed within the territory of the City.

The special economic status of Anaklia, defined by the Constitution of Georgia, grants the opportunity to develop a special regulatory framework and business environment in the frames of the project. It means, Anaklia City and SEZ will offer potential clients incentives which are far beyond the simple fiscal relief offered by the existing industrial zones in Georgia. In addition, Anaklia will offer one-stop-shop services for tenants and clients of the Zone, further decreasing the time and costs of dealing with bureaucracy.

Finally, the development of Anaklia will be based on the Smart and Green city principles, which means that Anaklia will offer high quality of life for local and foreign citizens to perform business activities or living in Anaklia. Anaklia also has the unique location from a tourism and recreational point of view, being located on the Black Sea coast along with the Kolkheti National Park.

Overall, we believe that Anaklia City will have a unique combination of incentives and favorable environment to become the regional center for transportation, industrial, financial, tourism and other business activities.