Bothnia Arc Seaports report (2012)
Lahtinen, Soile
University of Oulu
The research paper is a review about the northern seaports in the Barents Area of Finland and Sweden, situated by the shores of Bay of Bothnia.
The topic was deemed interesting as much attention has been given lately to the High North resources and the Arctic shipping routes on national and international political and business forums. Norway, Russia and European Union are elaborating their Arctic strategies and developing projects increasing trade and shipping activities in the North and Russia is currently shipping some 30 million tons of cargo per year to the big harbours in Europe and North America bypassing Northern Norway. With Russia entering WTO, developing industrial projects and port infrastructure along the Northern Sea Root, the trade activities going both ways – east and west in the North will have a significant growth so there is potential of demand for shipping demands exploding in the Bay of Bothnia area and with the mining industry growing rapidly in the North, there is a need to map out the current players in the game as well as their capacities and possibilities.
