Uzbekistan is building its own logistics hub at Poti: a 500,000-tonne terminal by 2027, a stake in Anaklia, and what it changes for Central Asia – Europe cargo

For several years Uzbekistan talked about the Middle Corridor as an option. In 2026 it started paying for a piece of it. On 18 August, at an open dialogue with entrepreneurs in Khiva, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev's press secretary Sherzod Asadov confirmed two things at once: a logistics centre at Georgia's Port of Poti with a capacity of up to 500,000 tonnes a year, to open in 2027, and the start of practical work on an Uzbek project at the planned Anaklia deep-sea port. For a landlocked country whose exports have historically left through Russia, or south through Iran, that is a strategic choice about where its cargo meets the sea.

This article is not about diplomacy. It is about what the hub physically is, why Tashkent picked Poti, how Uzbek cargo already reaches the Black Sea today, and what changes for a textile exporter in Fergana, a dried-fruit trader in Samarkand or a European importer who wants a 12–15-day rail option instead of a 40-day ocean one. We work with this corridor every week from the Georgian side, so we also flag the parts that are still fragile.

What exactly was announced on 18 August 2026

The important detail is that none of this starts from zero. The 500,000-tonne figure is a target for a terminal that has been under construction in the Poti Free Industrial Zone since September 2024, with a declared investment of $18.3 million and a site of up to 30 hectares. It is being built in three stages — cold storage first, then a covered general-cargo warehouse, then bulk storage and a terminal for oversized and containerised freight — which is exactly the order in which Uzbek export cargo needs them: fruit and dried fruit, then textiles and consumer goods, then salt, minerals and fertilisers.

Why Poti, and why now

The numbers behind the decision are unusually clear. In 2025 Uzbek cargo moving along the Middle Corridor passed one million tonnes for the first time, about 1.2 million tonnes in total. Container block trains from Tashkent now reach the Georgian ports in 12–15 days, where a few years ago the same journey took 18–23. The route carried 12% of Uzbekistan's foreign-trade cargo in 2021; today the share is 28%. More than 60% of Uzbek road carriers already use Georgian routes. When more than a quarter of your trade already flows through a country, owning a piece of the infrastructure there stops being a political gesture and becomes a supply-chain decision.

The political wrapper came in July 2026, when Mirziyoyev's state visit to Georgia lifted relations to a strategic partnership and produced a package of around 70 trade and investment projects worth about $1 billion. The transport chapter was concrete: wider use of Poti and Batumi for Uzbek cargo, the logistics hub with an industrial zone and a permanent showroom, electronic exchange of bilateral and transit road permits, and an agreement to extend the CASCA+ rail discounts — up to 70% on container shipments — to other wagon types. Poti was chosen over the alternatives for a simple reason: it is where the containers already arrive. Georgia's largest sea port handled a record 636,000 TEU in 2025, roughly 80% of the country's container traffic, and a new harbour crane due by the end of 2026 lifts capacity above 650,000 TEU and adds about 500,000 tonnes of other cargo handling.

Inside the Poti Free Industrial Zone

The Poti Free Industrial Zone was the first tax-exempt zone in the Caucasus and remains the oldest and largest in Georgia: about 300 hectares directly adjacent to the port, with more than a hundred registered companies, most of them trading houses, alongside light manufacturing, chemical and steel processing and warehousing. The regime is what makes the Uzbek plan work economically. A company registered in a Georgian free industrial zone is exempt from corporate profit tax and property tax, and goods moving into, out of and inside the zone carry no VAT or customs duty; only goods supplied from the zone into Georgia's own customs territory are taxed, at a flat 4% of revenue. For cargo that arrives from Uzbekistan and leaves for Europe, the zone is in practice a bonded platform where stock can sit, be sorted, repacked or finished without a tax event.

That matters for the showroom idea in particular. Uzbek textiles, dried fruit, fresh produce, household appliances and building materials can be held in Poti as available stock, shown to European and Turkish buyers, and shipped in mixed lots on demand, instead of every order starting a 25–30-day journey from Tashkent. A cold store of 1,000 tonnes is small by European standards, but it is the first piece of Uzbek-controlled cold chain on the Black Sea — enough to buffer dried apricots and raisins or fresh cherries between the arrival of a train and the departure of a vessel.

What the Uzbek hub will actually do

Read the three phases together and the hub is less a warehouse than a small export platform with four jobs.

• Consolidation and bonded storage — Uzbek cargo arriving by rail in wagons or containers is stored, sorted and re-consolidated into export lots inside the free zone, without VAT or duty until it leaves for a third market
• Cold chain — the 1,000-tonne frozen-goods store covers fruit, dried fruit and food products, the segment where Uzbekistan's exports to Europe are growing fastest and where a missed vessel is most expensive
• Final-stage processing — a production area for finishing textiles, food products and household appliances before export; note that under the Georgia–EU DCFTA a product only gains Georgian origin if the product-specific rules of origin are met, so cutting, packing or labelling alone does not change the tariff treatment
• Showroom and exhibition space — a permanent display of Uzbek products for buyers from Europe, Türkiye and the Caucasus, with stock physically available a few hundred metres from the quay
• Bulk and oversized cargo — the final phase adds open and covered bulk storage and a terminal for out-of-gauge and containerised freight: Karakalpak salt, already shipped to Germany through Poti, plus fertilisers, non-ferrous metals and project cargo
• A launch pad for Anaklia — experience and volumes built up in Poti are the practical case for an Uzbek presence at the deep-sea port when its first phase opens

None of this replaces the port; it sits beside it. The Uzbek terminal does not have its own berth in the announced plan — cargo still crosses the quay at APM Terminals or the general-cargo berths of Poti — so the hub's value is in what happens before and after the ship, not on the water.

How the Uzbekistan – Georgia route works today

The chain above is how an Uzbek export actually travels today. The proof of concept was a block train organised by Uztemiryulcontainer, the container subsidiary of Uzbekistan Railways: 39 forty-foot containers of urea loaded at the Sergeli logistics centre near Tashkent, moved through the CASCA+ corridor and transhipped at Poti, and delivered to Burgas in Bulgaria, Piraeus in Greece and Naples and La Spezia in Italy with an average transit of 25–30 days from Uzbekistan to the European port. That is the benchmark to compare against the Suez route or against trucking, and it already includes the Caspian ferry leg, which remains the least predictable part of the journey.

Two things make the 2027 hub change the arithmetic. First, stock held in Poti removes the Caspian variable from the buyer's side of the deal: a European customer orders from Georgia, not from Tashkent, and the 12–15-day inland leg becomes a replenishment cycle rather than a delivery time. Second, transloading in Poti and Batumi becomes a planned operation with Uzbek staff and Uzbek warehouse space, rather than something arranged shipment by shipment. For a forwarder that means fewer improvised solutions on the quay and more of the work done in advance.

Anaklia: the longer horizon

Anaklia is the reason the Uzbek announcement mentioned two ports, not one. Georgia's first deep-sea port is being built about 30 km north of Poti with a design depth of around 17.5 metres, enough for Panamax and Post-Panamax vessels that today cannot call anywhere on Georgia's coast. The construction phase was formally launched in spring 2026: the Belgian contractor Jan De Nul is dredging the access channel and turning basin through the end of 2026, the breakwater is due by the end of 2027, and the Georgian government's stated target is a first ship in 2029, with phase 1 designed for around 600,000 TEU a year and a second phase taking it to at least one million TEU by 2035. The ownership structure is 51% Georgian state and 49% the CCCC / China Harbour consortium selected in 2024. For Uzbekistan, "practical implementation" at Anaklia most plausibly means participation of Uzbek companies in terminal or logistics facilities during construction, so that the country arrives at the deep-water gateway with capacity already reserved rather than negotiating for it after opening. Until then, Poti is the working port and Anaklia is the option value.

The eastern link: the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway

The other end of the corridor is being built at the same time. The China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway (CKU) runs about 532 km from Kashgar to Andijan: roughly 158 km in China, 305 km across Kyrgyzstan and 69 km in Uzbekistan. The Kyrgyz section alone is valued at $4.7 billion, with China lending $2.35 billion and Kyrgyzstan contributing around $700 million. Progress is real but early: by the end of 2026 about 5% of the line is expected to be built, with work started on 26 of 29 tunnels and 40 of 50 bridges. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov named 2030 as the completion target in March 2026; Uzbekistan's deputy transport minister, who also heads the TRACECA secretariat, has said 2028–2029 is possible.

Why it matters for a warehouse in Poti: once CKU opens, Uzbekistan stops being the end of the Middle Corridor and becomes a through-station on a second China–Europe trunk that avoids both Russia and the sea. Chinese cargo entering at Andijan would follow exactly the chain described above to the Georgian coast. Tashkent is preparing for that role with the Silkway Central Asia hub near the capital, designed by Uzbekistan Railways with Chinese and Kazakh partners to process about 3 million tonnes of rail freight a year after 2030, and with a network of logistics centres at Alat, Termez, Yangiyul, Akhangaran and Khanabad. Poti is the western bookend of that network.

What it means for exporters, importers and forwarders

Strip away the strategy and the practical consequences are concrete for three groups of people.

• Uzbek exporters — a bonded consolidation point in a free zone 300 km from Türkiye's Black Sea coast and one feeder call from the EU; the ability to hold stock, sell from the showroom and ship mixed lots; cold storage for fruit and dried fruit from 2027
• European and Turkish importers — a supplier who can quote delivery from Georgia rather than from Central Asia, which turns a 25–30-day chain into days from Poti; VAT- and duty-free storage until the goods actually move
• Forwarders — planned transloading instead of improvised transloading; the CASCA+ container discounts now extending to other wagon types; electronic road permits that remove one of the paperwork delays for Uzbek trucks entering Georgia
• Check the origin rules before promising a tariff — processing in Poti gives Georgian origin under the DCFTA only if the product-specific rule is met; for textiles that usually means more than cutting and sewing from imported fabric
• Plan the Caspian buffer — a 12–15-day inland leg assumes a ferry departure within a few days of arrival at Aktau or Kuryk; build three to five days of slack into any commitment that depends on a specific vessel in Poti
• Match the equipment to the cargo — containers for textiles, appliances and urea in bags; hoppers and covered wagons for bulk; reefers with shore power for fruit — the terminal's three phases map onto exactly these formats

The common thread is that the corridor becomes something you can plan around rather than something you attempt. That is what infrastructure ownership buys: not lower tariffs, but predictability.

Risks and bottlenecks to plan around

The honest list of constraints is short but real. The Caspian ferry has no fixed schedule, and autumn storms and shallowing at Aktau have cut sailing days in previous years, so the crossing remains the swing factor in any transit-time promise. Georgia's own network has known bottlenecks: rolling-stock shortages, single-track sections and border congestion that show up whenever volumes spike. Poti has no deep water, which is why Anaklia exists at all; until 2029 every Uzbek container leaves Georgia on a feeder vessel and is transhipped again in a Turkish, Romanian or Greek hub. And the Black Sea itself carries a war-risk insurance premium that changes with the news.

Two further caveats are about the project rather than the geography. A 2027 launch for a terminal that began construction in September 2024 is achievable but tight, and the third phase — bulk and oversized cargo — is the most likely to slip. And the 500,000-tonne figure is a capacity, not a forecast: filling it depends on Uzbek exporters actually shifting stock to Poti, which is a commercial decision made one company at a time. None of this argues against the hub; it argues for treating 2027 as the start of a ramp-up, not a switch.

Development prospects

The next four years stack several openings on top of each other. In 2026 Poti's new harbour crane lifts container capacity above 650,000 TEU and adds around 500,000 tonnes of other cargo handling. In 2027 the Uzbek hub opens with its 500,000-tonne capacity, and the trilateral Kazakhstan–Azerbaijan–Georgia target for the Middle Corridor is 10 million tonnes a year. In 2029 Anaklia is due to receive its first vessel, giving Georgia a Panamax-capable port for the first time, with Uzbek participation intended from the start. Around 2030 the CKU railway is scheduled to connect Kashgar to Andijan and the Silkway Central Asia hub near Tashkent to process 3 million tonnes a year, and by 2035 Anaklia's second phase is planned at one million TEU or more.

Georgia, for its part, has announced about $7 billion of planned investment in ports, transport and logistics, and the Uzbek programme is only one of several foreign anchors — AD Ports of Abu Dhabi and Kazakhstan's port and rail operators are building on the same coast and the same railway. The direction is consistent: Georgia as a transit country is moving from a place cargo passes through to a place where its owners keep stock, staff and equipment. Uzbekistan's Poti hub is the clearest single example of that shift so far.

In short

Uzbekistan is turning a route it already uses for 28% of its foreign-trade cargo into infrastructure it controls: a 500,000-tonne logistics centre in the Poti Free Industrial Zone by 2027, built in three phases from cold storage to bulk, plus a foothold in Anaklia for the deep-water era from 2029. For shippers the practical gains are bonded stock next to the quay, cold chain on the Black Sea, planned transloading and a supplier who can deliver from Georgia in days instead of from Tashkent in weeks. The constraints — the Caspian ferry, Georgian rail capacity, feeder transhipment until Anaklia opens — do not go away, but they become plannable. Tell us what you move between Uzbekistan and Europe and in which direction, and we will map it onto the corridor as it works today and as it will work from 2027.

See also: Port of Poti · Port of Anaklia · Uzbek textile exports to Europe · Uzbek liquorice exports · Georgia as a transit country · The Caspian crossing