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“The rhetoric remains just rhetoric: the consortium has not received support from the Georgian authorities for the project and [Conti] has made its decision,” a source quoted by the news service said.
“This is the result of a very long-term, very aggressive campaign to discredit mounted by the government against the consortium,”​ ​remarked​ ​independent analyst Gia Khukhashvili in comments published by InterPressNews.ge. He added that the withdrawal of Conti would in his opinion mean the exit of the ‘West’ from the project, with Russian or Chinese investors joining the investment or the investment being scrapped.
A successful port project at Anaklia is envisaged as picking up a major volume of business flowing from China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to boost flows of Chinese exports to Europe with the utilisation of new modern infrastructure.
Georgia’s Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure​ ​was quoted​ ​by InterPressNews.ge as saying in a press release that any exit by an ADC consortium member must receive the prior endorsement of the government—and no such step had been reported as yet. But Conti had not been involved in the consortium management since last December and was not involved in recent negotiations, the ministry reportedly acknowledged​.
56​ GEORGIA Country Report​ October 2019 ​ ​www.intellinews.com