For centuries, the Silk Road carried more than goods — it carried culture, ideas, and faith across Eurasia, with Georgia at its heart. Today, the Middle Corridor is the modern, multimodal successor: the fastest-growing trade route connecting China to Europe via Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus, and Turkey.
China to Europe in two physical legs: roughly 4,250 km of rail across Central Asia, then a Caspian Sea crossing into the South Caucasus — with Georgia as the corridor's western gateway to Black Sea and Turkish onward routes.
The corridor combines roughly 4,250 km of rail with around 500 km of Caspian Sea crossing: China → Kazakhstan by rail → the Caspian Sea → Azerbaijan (Baku) → Georgia (Tbilisi, and the Black Sea ports of Batumi and Poti) → onward to Turkey or directly into Europe via the Black Sea. Georgia is the corridor's western gateway — the point where Asian trade physically meets European and Latin American capital.
The corridor existed before 2022 but was marginal. Russia's invasion of Ukraine changed that: EU sanctions on Russian transit routes left European shippers needing an alternative, and the Middle Corridor was the only viable one. China–Europe container shipments via Georgia grew 15x between 2023 and 2024 alone. This is structural growth, driven by the EU's Global Gateway strategy, China's Belt and Road Initiative, and Gulf state capital — including the UAE's stake in the Tbilisi Dry Port — all converging on the same geography at the same time.
Launched in 2015 under the patronage of the Government of Georgia, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum has grown from roughly 1,000 delegates across 34 countries to over 2,000 delegates from 60+ countries — heads of government, business leaders, and international financial institutions, convening every two years to discuss trade, transport, energy, and digital connectivity across the corridor.
The Forum creates the conversations. What happens to them afterward — the follow-up, the activation, the private-sector deal flow — is a separate question, and one the corridor's institutions are still working out.
Governments coordinate infrastructure. Logistics associations coordinate freight. International bodies provide research and financing. What has been missing is a permanent, private-sector body that turns introductions made at events like the Silk Road Forum into actual deals — the human layer above the infrastructure. That is the gap SGBA was built to close.
Data briefs, field notes, and policy analysis from SGBA Research — the ongoing record of what's actually moving across the corridor.