Anaklia Community and Economic Development Program Launches Anaklia Education Hub and MSME Grants Program to Promote Regional Economic Development
By Messenger Staff
Friday, March 1
Anaklia Community and Economic Development (ACED) is a joint initiative of Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC) and USAID Zrda Activity designed to promote the regional economic development of Anaklia and its surrounding areas, support increase of the competitiveness and growth of MSMEs in the region, build and sustain a workforce qualified to meet the market demand for both port operations and the wider economy in the region, and facilitate the development of community infrastructure necessary to the region.
“USAID is extremely proud to be partnering with the Anaklia Development Consortium to support small and medium-sized enterprises and businesses here in the communities around Anaklia. We will help these MSMEs to create jobs, grow and become work competitive here in Anaklia as well as all over Georgia,” USAID Mission Director Peter Wiebler told The Messenger.
With this in mind, ACED program is launching the first in Anaklia Education Hub tasked to open an access to skills development for future employment opportunities within the port itself and surrounding businesses expected to develop alongside the growth of the port and the free economic zone. The Anaklia Education Hub will offer a variety of training courses in the English language and computer skills, entrepreneurship, Business Administration, tourism and agriculture that will increase the professional capacity of local population by offering a series of interventions to support a sustainable transformational development of the local communities.
“Our key aim is to train locals to become better professionals and to employ them, as well as to support MSMEs and to promote regional economic development. We are more than happy to partner with USAID/Zrda and with the joint efforts we’ll manage to strengthen the region, create employment opportunities and train as many people as possible to have good professionals after the first phase of the Anaklia Deep Sea Port is completed,” Anaklia Development Consortium’s (ADC) CEO Levan Akhvlediani said on Thursday.
In parallel, ACED introduces the grants program for agriculture and non-agriculture sector development to support micro-, small- and medium size enterprise growth in line with the technical support to improve business and technical skills through trainings.
Overall, the Anaklia Community and Economic Development Program will provide support to communities in West Georgia to maximize their ability to capitalize on the coming economic development opportunities presented by the $2.5 billion Anaklia Deep Sea Port mega project, which is a joint venture of a Georgian-U.S. consortium. The new deep-water port is envisioned to transform Georgia into a regional economic hub and a key link and transport corridor between Asia and Europe. Construction of Georgia’s first deep sea port started in December 2017, and the first phase of the project - construction of the primary container terminal - will be completed by the end of 2020, which also coincides with the timeline of the joint development program between USAID Zrda and ADC.