Ras Al Khaimah: The Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority (Rakia) has bought a 51 per cent stake in Georgian harbour Poti Port as well as a 60 per cent stake in a Congolese airline, a top official said.
"We are planning to develop a major free zone at the adjacent land next to the port, as we have the necessary knowledge and knowhow," Serge H. Guillaume, executive director of Rakia, told reporters on Monday.
The Poti Sea Port is a major seaport and harbour off the eastern Black Sea coast at the mouth of the Rioni River in Poti, Georgia. It is a cross point of the Trans-Caucasian Corridor/Traceca, a multinational project which goes through Tashkent-Ashgabat-Türkmenba-Baku and Poti to Romanian port of Constanza and Bulgarian port Varna, thus linking the landlocked countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus to Eastern Europe.
The construction of a seaport at Poti was conceived shortly after the Russian Empire conquered the town from the Ottoman Empire in 1828. In 1858, Poti was granted the status of a port city, but it was not until 1899 when, under the patronage of the mayor of Poti Niko Nikoladze, the construction entered the sprint stages and was basically complete by 1907. The seaport has since reconstructed several times.
Performance
In 2007, the total throughput was 7.7 million tonnes and container handling was 185,000 TEU.
In April, Georgia sold a 51 per cent stake of the Poti port area to Rakia to develop a free economic zone (FEZ) in a 49-year management concession, and to manage a new port terminal. The creation of a new FEZ was officially inaugurated by the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on April 15.
Rakia has also acquired a 60 per cent stake in a now defunct airline in Congo.
"Currently the airline does not have any fleet, so it is not operational. However, we are planning to buy aircraft to start services," Guillaume said. "It is a national carrier and enjoys some traffic rights in the central African region, which the airline will serve. It will have close ties with RAK Airways in services and fleet management."
Ras Al Khaimah's government has some mining interest in Congo where its asset development and real estate arm Rakeen is building a number of projects, Waheed Alltalla, Rakeen board member, told Gulf News on Monday.
