LONDON, August 10. /TASS/. Sea Legend, a Chinese container shipping company, will launch the first regular container shipping service from China to Europe via the Northern Sea Route (NSR) this week, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper reported.

A weekly service from the Chinese port of Ningbo-Zhoushan to Felixstowe in the UK via the Northern Sea Route will cut the transit time between the two locations by nearly half to 20 days.

According to Rahul Khanna, global head of marine risk consulting at the insurer Allianz, "there’s been a definite increase in traffic through the Arctic and Northern Sea Route." "Vessels and shipowners now see it as more of an opportunity, first to save a lot of time and cost" but also to "take out all the geopolitical chokepoints and conflict zones," he said.

The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route and the primary maritime artery in the Russian Arctic. It runs along Russia’s northern coast, traversing the seas of the Arctic Ocean.