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Hello and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service.

I'm Adrienne Murray, and today we're looking at shipping in the Arctic.

As policy ice retreats, potential new trade routes are beginning to emerge at the top

of the world. Coming straight across the north, we're going to reduce the transit times and therefore

reduce costs. We'll examine the players with big ambitions to develop these shipping shortcuts

between Europe and Asia. Putin and Xi Jinping, they got together and announced that

the polar silk road was a new project. So might the global trade map be redrawn or do the risks

outweigh the rewards? It's still a very, very tiny proportion of global trade and there is

reluctance on the part of the major shipping companies

to use it more. That's all coming up on Business Daily.

Docking in the British port to Felixstow last October was a ship called the Istanbul Bridge. It was carrying around

4,000 containers and had sailed from Ningbo in China. What was extraordinary was the unconventional

route it took to Europe, an almost 8,000 nautical mile journey through the Arctic waters above Russia.

Operated by the Chinese-controlled firm Sea Legend Line, the voyage took just 20 days,

a whole week less than sailing around Asia and through the Middle East.

With recent troubles in the Gulf of Aden and now the Strait of Hormuz, some see promise in alternative routes.

We have always had problems going through the Suez Canal.

Andy Thorne is CEO of Kestrel, a shipping agent which handles Sea Legend's vessels when they call into UK ports.

Every time there's a flare-up, the ships are then forced to go round the Cape in South Africa,

which causes longer transit times.

It's more expensive and delays cargo.

...