Q1. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your professional background, particularly focusing on your expertise in the industry?

For more than 20 years, I’ve worked at the intersection of government, business, and infrastructure. My career has taken me from advising on public administration and investment attraction to managing projects in sectors like construction, food processing, wineries, transport, and energy. I’ve held strategic roles with multilateral development institutions and international consultancies, and I’ve partnered with both governments and corporate investors on project structuring and regulatory reforms.

On a practical level, I’ve led due diligence for cross border transport and energy corridors, advised on financing packages for national projects, and helped design public private partnership frameworks. I’ve also worked with incubator and acceleration programs focused on building tech clusters in smaller cities. My experience spans both regulatory and institutional reform—like tariffs, concessions, and customs interoperability—as well as the investor side, including risk allocation, exit strategies, and blended finance. I regularly collaborate with governments, financial institutions, EU bodies, and private investors, which has given me a clear understanding of both the political realities, and the hands on steps needed to move projects from an idea to being fully financed.

 

Q2. What structural reforms must economic diplomacy prioritize to shift a country from exporting low-margin commodities to attracting tech hubs? 

If a country wants to shift from exporting raw materials to building thriving tech hubs, its economic diplomacy needs to focus on practical, achievable reforms that boost business confidence and help attract both talent and investment.

First, it’s essential to create a stable and predictable business environment. That means upholding the rule of law, ensuring transparent corporate governance, enforcing contracts, and making it easy to register and license new businesses. These basics are what give investors the confidence to come in.

Second, fiscal and regulatory incentives need to fit today’s markets. Targeted R&D tax credits, strong patent protections, modern labor policies, and early-stage public co-investment can help reduce the risks for new ventures.

Third, invest in core infrastructure—like reliable power (including stable grids for data centers), fast broadband, and efficient logistics. These reduce costs for tech companies and make it easier for them to grow.

Fourth, focus on building a skilled workforce. This means supporting vocational education and making it easier for skilled members of the diaspora to return home, perhaps through startup grants or similar incentives.

Fifth, set up specialized economic zones or innovation districts where businesses can get all their permits in one place and don’t have to jump through endless regulatory hoops.

Finally, it’s important to pull all these reforms together into trade and investment agreements. These should make it easier to move products and services across borders, allow skilled workers to move where they’re needed, and encourage cooperation on digital standards.

The order of these reforms’ matters: first, secure the basics like rule of law and infrastructure; then add targeted incentives and support for building human capital. In this process, diplomacy acts as a matchmaker—connecting international capital and expertise with local reforms and turning a country’s natural advantages into a real tech ecosystem.

 

Q3. What regulatory and technical grid-alignment milestones must be cleared before the Black Sea submarine cable can transmit commercial power to the EU? 

Getting commercial power across a Black Sea cable requires legal, technical, and commercial steps to be lined up between countries and operators. 
Regulatory milestones include: 

• Intergovernmental agreements
• Harmonization of technical standards
• Licensing and permitting harmonization for cable routing
• Seabed use and environmental compliance across coastal states
• Tariff and market coupling arrangements

Technical milestones include: 

• Feasibility and route surveys
• Design and procurement of high voltage subsea cables
• Coastal landfall infrastructure and converter stations that integrate with national grids and include synchronous controls
• Joint security proceduresCommissioning procedures and cyber security frameworks protecting control systems. 

Commercial and financial milestones include: 

• Final investment decisions supported by long term capacity contracts
• Insurance and risk allocation for construction and political risks
• Agreed operation and maintenance arrangements

Stakeholder coordination:  

• Engaging fisheries
• Secure environment agencies and port authorities

The construction process is now under consideration by the governments and institutions.

 

Q4. Do existing South Caucasus ports possess the heavy-lift capacity and infrastructure needed to support complex offshore wind and cabling projects? 

Right now, most Georgian ports in the South Caucasus face significant challenges when it comes to handling large offshore wind projects or heavy submarine cable logistics. For example, Batumi port was originally designed more for passenger traffic and smaller cargo like containers, breakbulk goods, and general freight.

Some of the biggest gaps are a lack of heavy-duty cranes and gantries, no large, paved yards for assembling turbines or foundations, shallow berths and small turning basins that can’t accommodate installation vessels, and quay structures that aren’t strong enough for ultra-heavy loads. There’s also often a shortage of strong grid connections for equipment testing and limited covered storage for long cable carousels. 

It’s worth noting that Poti port managed to receive and handle heavy wind power components for Georgia’s first wind power station, but port capacity overall still needs to grow. That’s why a new deep-sea port is being developed in Georgia, although progress has been slow for a variety of reasons.
Many of Georgia’s existing ports could be upgraded without breaking the bank, especially if they have enough land, decent water depth near the shore, and good road or rail links. These upgrades should happen in stages: dredging deeper berths (like at Poti), installing powerful cranes, building reinforced assembly yards, and creating berths for operations and maintenance. For subsea cable work, ports need covered storage, specialized cable-handling gear, and secure, streamlined customs procedures—these requirements are less heavy than wind projects, but still specialized.

Getting these upgrades done will require coordinated financing—think public funding, loans from EBRD or EIB, and involvement from private operators—plus faster permits and special customs rules for oversized cargo. Without improvements, developers will likely have to rely on distant transshipment hubs, which only drives up costs and causes delays.

 

Q5. Why has a unified electronic customs clearing platform remained elusive across the Caucasus despite decades of bilateral agreements?

The reason there’s still no unified electronic customs platform across the Caucasus comes down to a mix of politics, technical challenges, and institutional obstacles.

On the political side, countries in the region have different priorities. Some want closer ties with the EU, while others prefer to stay more independent—which makes sharing sensitive data a tricky subject. Often, governments focus on quick bilateral trade deals that meet immediate needs rather than working together on bigger, long-term solutions. From an institutional perspective, customs agencies vary widely in their staffing, resources, and old ways of doing things. Real reform takes steady political will, ongoing resources, and consistent leadership, but these are often disrupted by changing domestic politics.

On the technical front, making systems work together means agreeing on common data standards, secure ways to send information across borders, and using the same tariff codes. That’s tough when countries have old IT systems, different procurement rules, and don’t always follow the same international standards.

 

Q6. Have regional tech talent and digital nomad inflows successfully built permanent innovation hubs, or have they primarily driven local real estate inflation? 

The reality is mixed. Tech talent and digital nomads have helped create small innovation clusters in cities like Tbilisi or Yerevan, but they haven’t yet turned the region into broad, self sustaining technology hubs. These inflows seeded co working spaces, accelerators and small startups, and attracted early stage investors and diaspora founders. That activity shows real promise; local teams are shipping software and niche services, but the market does not have enough follow on capital, larger anchor companies and steady talent pipelines to scale into major hubs. 

On the housing side, remote workers and expats have pushed up demand in central neighborhoods, increasing rents and pricing some locals out of prime areas. The effect is noticeable but not at the scale of global tech cities. To mature, hubs need policy support: more incubator and VC funding, stronger university industry links, R&D incentives and affordable housing for skilled workers. Also crucial are anchor investments, regional R&D centers or multinationals that commit long term staff. 

In short, talent inflows created important building blocks, and some local price pressure, but lasting innovation ecosystems will require targeted public private action and more capital.

 

Q7. If you were an investor looking at companies within the space, what critical question would you pose to their senior management? 

I would ask: How will you see your portfolio in the next 3–5 years given the region’s specifics, and what measurable milestones and risk-reducing steps are in your financing plan?

To answer this practical question, there must be some coverage, for example: Market and customer clarity; regulatory dependencies; workforce specifics and skill gaps; and finance availability and risk assessment. A credible response will show realistic assumptions, contingency buffers and alignment between founders, investors and local partners.