China to release its first guidebook on Arctic shipping shortcut
July 1, 2014 Category Logistics, Ports & sea transport
China will soon publish its first guide to Arctic sailing on the Northern Sea Route, a newly discovered shortcut that will help Chinese shipping companies reduce transit times between China and Europe. The guide will offer “comprehensive, practical and authoritative” information for Chinese cargo ships for sailing the Northern Sea Route, or Northeast Passage, to Europe, Zhai Jiugang, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Transport’s Maritime Safety Administration, said at a news conference in Beijing. He said the guide will be released in July. The new route can save Chinese cargo ships 5,186 kilometers and nine days from the traditional voyage to Europe, which goes through the Malacca Straits and the Suez Canal, he said. The Northern Sea Route is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation to run from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and the Far East. The guide elaborates on such things as the Northern Sea Route’s nautical chart, sailing methods, ice-breaking providers and Arctic geography and climate, as well as laws and regulations of countries along the route, according to Wang Liangyu, Maritime Mapping Expert with the Ministry’s Donghai Navigation Safety Administration. The book’s publication will make China the second country after Russia to issue an Arctic voyage guide. There are three main shipping passages across the Arctic region, and the Northern Sea Route opens at the end of July for about four months. It is deemed the most economical route in the region because it has the shortest distance of 5,437 km but it was long marginalized because of ice blockage. With the effects of global warming, the route has become more accessible for ships because the ice is melting faster. A total of 46 commercial ships went through the lane last year, the China Daily reports.
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