With China trying hard to boost trade ties with Europe, Finland plans to build an ‘Arctic Corridor’ in order to link the Asian giant to the second smallest continent.
Finland has revealed that it is holding talks with Norway, as the two countries decide to initiate the project as soon as possible. The successful implementation of the project will create the shortest and most direct route for transportation of goods between Asia and Europe.
The Finnish authorities have admitted that China’s massive ‘One Belt and One Road’ (OBOR) initiative encouraged them to undertake the Arctic Corridor project. A senior Finnish official, who wished to remain anonymous, said over the weekend that the proposed corridor would allow cargo vessels from Asia to off-load in Kirkenes or other Norwegian ports. It will also help vessels save thousands of nautical miles as compared to the route through the Suez Canal. As per the plan, goods from Asia would reach different European destinations via railways through Finland in record time.

Arctic Corridor

Meanwhile, the Finnish official revealed that Beijing recently agreed to upgrade 500km-long railway track from Norway to Finland and a tunnel from Finland to Estonia. “We will publish a first feasibility study of the rail-link to the Arctic Ocean within a few days,” stressed Risto Murto, the Deputy Director General of the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications’ Networks Department. He also said: “When we think of the new corridors to China, we are in the middle between Europe and Asia. Finland is not an island anymore. We look at our geopolitical position in a whole new way.”
According to Murto, Finland is all set to emerge as Europe’s air traffic gateway to China and Asia. He told the press that Helsinki Airport is closer to the Asian country compared to any other airport in the European Union, as it takes only seven and a half hours to reach the Chinese capital. He further claimed that there was a 16% jump in the number of passengers flying from Helsinki to Beijing in 2017 compared to the previous year.

It is to be noted that Finland has strengthened ties with China in recent times. Chinese President Xi Jinping made a stopover in Finland in May 2017 on his way to the US. Later, Beijing sent two Chinese pandas (on loan) to the zoo in Helsinki as a part of its “panda-diplomacy”. The Asian powerhouse also invested a huge amount of money in different Finnish projects, apart from helping the northern European country in establishing new plants for production of bio-fuels and eco-friendly paper pulp.
Murto once again assured Beijing that Finland would try hard to materialise the Arctic project as soon as possible, saying that the construction of the proposed corridor would begin in 2030. He expressed hope that the corridor would boost the international traffic on the Northern Sea Route from Europe along northern coasts of Russia to Asia.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das