Rosatom's Director General Alexey Likhachev spoke about plans for the development of the Great Northern Sea Route.
Rosatom took part in The Northern Sea Route and its Logistics Potential session held as part of the business program of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF – 2024) on September 5, 2024.
Igor Levitin, Advisor to the Russian President, Gadzhimagomed Huseinov, First Deputy Minister for the Far East and Arctic Development, and Alexander Bondar, Director of the Educational and Scientific-Technical Department of the EMERCOM of Russia, attended the event among other officials. Fan Yuxin's, Chairman of the company NewNew Shipping Line (China), and Sakiko Hataya's, Advisor at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, attendance of the session highlighted the growing interest in working out a new approach to international cooperation in the development of the NSR.
The discussion focused on the development of the Northern Sea Route as the only waterway connecting all subarctic and arctic regions of Russia.
"We still have a lot to do to develop it into a truly attractive, comfortable and safe international transport route. And we have no alternative but to fulfill this task. It is very important that when the President held a meeting on the energy transport infrastructure of the Far East the other day, he said that we are addressing all infrastructure solutions in the context of the NSR development. We stopped thinking of the NSR as a legally defined section from the Vilkitsky Strait to the Bering Strait a long time ago. We consider it a large corridor from our northwestern ports, including Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, to the Far Eastern ports of Vladivostok and Sakhalin. And these very terms and concepts are used in setting up the new federal project called the Great Northern Sea Route, which, I am absolutely sure, the government will approve," noted Alexey Likhachev, Rosatom Director General.
For reference:
In 2018, the Russian government appointed Rosatom the infrastructure operator of the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Rosatom oversees the federal project Development of the Northern Sea Route being also involved in the plan for the Northern Sea Route development until 2035 and the initiative for the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation until 2030 Year-Round Northern Sea Route approved by the order of the Russian government.
One of Rosatom's strategic goals is to make the NSR an effective transport artery connecting Europe, Russia and the Asia-Pacific region. Underway is a federal project for the development of the Great Northern Sea Route – a transport corridor from St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.
The Eastern Economic Forum is a key international platform for discussing the investment potential of the Far East, presenting new projects and business conditions in the advanced development areas. It was started up by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on May 19, 2015. Roscongress Foundation acts as the Forum operator. The comprehensive development of the Russian Arctic is considered a national strategic priority. To fulfill these tasks, it is of primary importance to increase the traffic along the NSR. This logistics corridor is being developed due to regular shipments, construction of new nuclear icebreakers and modernization of the relevant infrastructure. Rosatom is actively involved in these efforts.