A small group of us left Tbilisi predawn on Thursday for a five-hour drive to Poti, one of Georgia’s industrial port cities located along the Black Sea coastline.
About half way through our trip, we stopped at Jargvali, a campsite and popular break point for travelers making the east-west trek, according to our guide Alexandre. Breakfast there wasn’t your average coffee and pastry to-go. Instead, we sat for a multi-course meal: salad, khachapuri, vegetables, chicken and fried fish, followed by offers of cake and chacha for dessert... we politely took a pass!
Fully replenished, we continued our road trip, making our first of three stops at Poti’s APM Terminals, Georgia’s largest port serving 14 shipping lines. We toured the facility’s 15 berths and learned about its recent double-digit growth in shipping activity and potential as a hub connecting Central Asia and Europe.
Next we met with the head of a Georgian-US logistics company called PACE Group. They told us about the company’s origins in the wake of Georgia’s independence and receipt of U.S. foreign aid in the early 1990s, and gave us a tour of their storage facilities, which house goods, including fertilizer from Turkmenistan, cotton from Uzbekistan, and aluminum from Tajikistan.
Our last appointment: a visit to the nearby coast guard office, where officials described their involvement in existing maritime security initiatives and efforts to enhance “maritime domain awareness” in the Black Sea Region, and also spoke openly about some of their resource limitations and staffing challenges.
We arrived back to Tbilisi around 10 pm — exhausted, but with a far greater understanding of Georgia’s place in regional supply chains and global trade.
-- Jordan Y, Cohort 4