A combination of global warming melting the ice and new technology means polar shipping routes will open up in the next few years, reducing drastically the time it takes for container traffic to travel from booming manufacturing centres in Asia to consumer markets in the West.

A ship travelling at 21 knots between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Yokohama in Japan takes 29 days if it goes via the Cape of Good Hope and 22 days via the Suez Canal, but will need just 15 days if it goes across the Arctic Ocean.

'By 2040 or 2050, the Arctic Ocean will be navigable, and that will mean significant developments very soon,' Mr Martin Fortier, a Canadian researcher who heads ArticNet, which studies the effects of climate change in the far north, said in January.

Multilateral agreements over navigation rights and the application of international law in the region would become imperative when that happens.

Financial Times, AFP