Anaklia City Makes Productive Visit to the United Arab Emirates
On April 8-11, representatives of Anaklia City paid a working visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In the framework of the visit, a memorandum of mutual relations between the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the main financial center of Abu Dhabi, and Anaklia City was signed, aiming to facilitate the deepening of relations between the sides as well as economic cooperation.
The memorandum was signed by Executive Director of Anaklia City Ms. Keti Bochorishvili, and Mr. Phillip Richard, Director of International Affairs of the ADGM. First Vice-Prime Minister, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, Mr. Dimitry Kumsishvili, and Chairman of the ADGM, Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh, attended the signing ceremony.
After establishing diplomatic relations in 1992 between the two countries, the relationship has been growing continually in the economic, administrative and social spheres. The new agreement between Anaklia City and the ADGM will help share experience in finance, service, regulations and other directions and is a basis for future relations.
“Today, we held a very important meeting with the ADGM to share the experience collected in this economic zone,” Mr. Kumsishvili said on the day of the signing.
“ADGM is a global financial center and leader for finding innovative ways to develop business,” Bochorishvili noted. “This cooperation is a very important step for deepening knowledge between these two zones, as well as in terms of progressing relations and attracting investments.”
According to ADGM’s Executive Director, the signing of the memorandum with Anaklia City is also good for them: “We are ready to strengthen our cooperation and strengthen our international partnership with Anaklia City, which can become a leading economic zone through the innovative and international platform of ADGM.”
Representatives of Anaklia City held a meeting with one of the largest global port and special economic zone operator - DP World. The meeting was arranged in Dubai Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza), at the head office of DP World. Directors of logistic parks and economic zones, and leading team for business development attended the meeting. Representatives of the DP World stated they found the project details very interesting and had decided to visit Georgia soon.
“Strengthening the role of Georgia alongside the One Belt, One Road initiative will be studied and the participation of DP World considered in the process, especially oriented on Anaklia Port,” said Minister Kumsishvili after meeting the Crown Prince of United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The Georgian Delegation attended the AIM conference, at which the Minister spoke about the Georgian economy and its investment opportunities. Notably, Bilateral Investment Treaty came in force that will further increase the investments from the UAE to Georgia. CEO of Anaklia City Keti Bochorishvili presented the project Anaklia City and the Special Economic Zone and different opportunities for the companies.
Anaklia City’s executives also made visits to large logistics and industrial parks in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Meetings were held with the top management representatives of the KIZAD – Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi and ZonesCorp, as well as with the world’s best economic zone of 2017 – DMCC – Dubai Multi Commodities Centre. Ms. Bochorishvili held meetings with leading real estate development companies and the largest investment agencies in the United Arab Emirates, such as EMAAR, Eagle Hills, Al Ain, Al Shafar properties, etc. Anaklia’s investment potential and future cooperation perspectives were discussed in the framework of the meetings.
"Our visit was very important for the development of the Anaklia Special Economic Zone concept and for partner companies to take an interest in it. The United Arab Emirates is famous for creating the economic zones in the world, enabling it to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the last 20 years. We have held meetings with successful economic zones, as well as those in the fields of industry and logistics, financial, trade and other services. Our goal is for the Anaklia Special Economic Zone to be exceptional in its integrated, state of the art infrastructure as well as the efficient business operations and services. I have to note that this project has unprecedented support of the Georgian and the UAE governments,” Ms. Bochorishvili noted.
Anaklia City started working on developing Anaklia City and Special Economic Zone in June 2017. In this period the company managed to make connections with more than 100 international companies and started partnership with many of them. Cooperation Agreements have been signed with the world-renowned, largest and most advanced Incheon Economic Zone (South Korea), the Khorgos Economic Zone (Kazakhstan), and various international logistics and transport companies, including the Korean company Pantos Logistics and European company Gebrüder Weiss. The work on the Master Plan of the Anaklia City has already begun, and the leading British company BuroHappold Engineering is working on it.