MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. Russia and India are working on the joint use of the Northern Sea Route and offshore hydrocarbon fields, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

"My Indian friends and I are working towards a more efficient use of the Northern Sea Route and those hydrocarbon fields located in the offshore area of the Russian Federation," he said.

According to the Russian top diplomat, the use of the Northern Sea Route in addition to land routes opens up very impressive prospects for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is increasingly paying attention to economic issues.

"Being located on most of the Eurasian continent, SCO member countries are interested in using these advantages to develop their economic ties, expand trade flows and create additional transport infrastructure that will minimize costs and, accordingly, increase profits and be beneficial for each of our countries," Lavrov said.

The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route and the main sea line in the Russian Arctic sector. It stretches along the northern coasts of Russia across the seas of the Arctic Ocean (Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering seas). The route consolidates the European and Far Eastern ports of Russia and navigable river mouths in Siberia into a single transport system. The route’s length is 5,600 km from the Kara Strait to Providence Bay.