Dear Deeply Readers,

Welcome to the archives of Arctic Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on September 15, 2017, and transitioned some of our coverage to Oceans Deeply, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on the Arctic. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors contributors.

We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].

BROWSE THE ARCTIC DEEPLY ARCHIVES

Broad Finnish-Japanese Cooperation in the Arctic

HIGH NORTH NEWS: Economic development across the Barents region is a top priority for the President of Finland and the Prime Minister of Japan. During a three-day visit to Japan, the two leaders discussed the shared cooperation of shipping along the Northern Sea Route.

Written by Malte Humpert Published on Read time Approx. 3 minutes

Following a summit meeting between Finnish president Sauli Niinisto and Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe, the two countries announced the further strengthening of their cooperative relationship across the Arctic region.

The two leaders stressed the geopolitical importance of the region to each nation, in part derived from their location near the eastern and western termini of the Northern Sea Route.

As part of the three-day visit to Japan that took place March 8-11, Niinisto and Abe discussed their shared vision for a strategic partnership in the Arctic, which included a reaffirmation of the importance of environmental protection, sustainable use of natural resources including energy, minerals, forestry and fisheries, as well as the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples across the region.

Additionally, the two leaders stressed the importance of economic development across the Barents region, drawing on political will and academic resources to further develop commercial opportunities.

The two countries’ ongoing cooperation in the Arctic has included a number of “Arctic fact-finding missions” conducted in June 2014, and March and May 2015, primarily focused on the energy and shipping sectors. Furthermore, Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) recently began collaborating on a wide range of research areas, including the impact of climate change on Arctic snow coverage and the utilization of satellite simulations to enhance safety in Arctic shipping.

Arctic shipping key interest for Japan Of particular interest to each nation is the further utilization of the Northern Sea Route and the linking of Northern Europe to Asia via this shipping shortcut. Both countries see their strategic locations at the western and eastern reaches of the NSR as a natural avenue for cooperation, and the two politicians affirmed their commitment to “advance dialogue and cooperating in their shared interests [and] further utilization of the NSR.”

Japan’s large northern ports on the island of Hokkaido represent a potential hub for traffic coming from or going to the Bering Strait.

Japan, in particular, has been an early benefactor of shipping along the NSR, receiving shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) produced at Norway’s facility at Hammerfest in 2012 and 2013 as well as two shipments of Naphtha in 2013 to the ports of Chiba, Futtsu, Mizushima and Tobata. Additionally, the Japanese port of Osaka received a delivery of seafood from Norway via the NSR in 2015.

The importance of Arctic shipping was also underscored at a recent press conference where Japan’s ambassador for Arctic affairs announced closer cooperation between Japan and Russia to increase navigation along the route and to research the Yamal LNG project.

Rule of Law Key to Shipping With respect to shipping, Japan and Finland stressed the importance of the adherence to the Law of the Sea and the peaceful settlement of any maritime disputes in accordance with international agreements, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The freedom of navigation of the seas and secure access to international markets has long been a key priority to both nations.

Earlier in 2016, in a speech titled The Bounty of the Open Seas: Five Principles for Japanese Diplomacy, Abe highlighted the country’s heavy reliance on shipping to import and export most of its goods, and stated that, as an island nation, the “safety of the seas” and “its own safety” are inseparable. Following the shutdown of a large percentage of its nuclear plants in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake, Japan’s need for hydrocarbon-based energy imports increased significantly, some of which were fulfilled via the NSR.

Bilateral trade stagnant since 2008 Trade between the two countries experienced steady growth between 2001 and 2008 but has been largely stagnant since the economic downturn of 2009.

Japanese imports from Finland grew from $870 million in 2001 to nearly $2 billion in 2008. In 2015, imports totalled $1.45 billion with wood and paper products accounting for around 35 percent of trade. Similarly, the overall trade volume, peaked at nearly $4 billion in 2007 but has since hovered around $2.5 billion.

In light of these stagnant trade figures, it remains to be seen if closer cooperation in the Arctic and the development of shipping routes can provide a needed stimulus and reinvigorate trade between the two countries.

This story was originally published in High North News and is reproduced here with permission.

Top image: Finland and Japan announced the strengthening of their cooperative relationship across the Arctic region. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, left, is shown the way by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. (Franck Robichon/Pool Photo via AP)

Republish this article

Our mission is to empower stakeholders and the wider public with high quality information, insights, and analysis on critical global issues. To help achieve this, we encourage you to republish the text of any article that contains a Republish button on your own news outlet.

By copying the HTML below, you agree to adhere to our republishing guidelines.

By copying the HTML below, you agree to adhere to our republishing guidelines. Click to expand

  1. In republishing any of our articles:

    Ensure that you include a line of our HTML tracking code on every article you republish. This is a lightweight, efficient way for us to see the number of page views of each specific article published on our partners’ websites. This does not affect page layout, nor does it provide any information about your users, other web pages on your site, or any further data. By copying and pasting the HTML code in the box below, the tracking code is automatically included.

    If, for any reason, you do not copy the code prepared for you, you must paste this code snippet into the end of the article in your CMS: 

    <img src="http://ping.newsdeeply.com/pixel.gif?key=91326&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsdeeply.com%2Farctic%2Farticles%2F2016%2F03%2F22%2Fbroad-finnish-japanese-cooperation-in-the-arctic" alt="" />

  2. Adhere to the guidelines below:
    • Edit our stories only to reflect references to time (e.g. "today" to "yesterday"), location (e.g. "New York" to "here") or editorial style; do not edit the wording of our articles.
    • Include all the links within the story.
    • Credit our authors and partner institutions — ideally in the byline. We prefer “Author Name, Institution”
    • Note at the top and/or bottom of the story that it originally appeared on Arctic Deeply. This note should include a direct link to the original article and a sentence that offers the reader the opportunity to join the Arctic’s mailing list. Our recommended example is:
      • This should read : “This article originally appeared on Arctic Deeply. You can find the original here. For important news about Arctic geopolitics, economy, and ecology, you can sign up to the Arctic email list.”
    • Do not republish a photo without our written permission. Some sources don't allow their images to be republished without permission.
    • Do not translate a story into another language without our written permission.
    • We often republish pieces from our partners. If you want to republish a partner’s story, you must credit the original partner and include a “via News Deeply” link.
    • Note that News Deeply considers the publication date to be the date marked on the story, and is not responsible for any content that you choose to repost.
    • After republication on the partner website, if you make an accompanying post on social media referencing the republished article, you must include the relevant Deeply social media handle in such post. For example, (i) for Twitter posts this means adding the appropriate @Deeply tag such as @SyriaDeeply, @WaterDeeply, or @WomensGirlsHub and (ii) for Facebook this means tagging the appropriate Deeply page in your Facebook post.
    • News Deeply material may not to be provided, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, to third parties or affiliates for redistribution through those entities, unless you have received prior written approval from News Deeply.
    • You may not automatically or systematically republish any material from our sites; all stories must be chosen individually for republishing.
    • You may not sell our content or republish it for commercial purposes without our prior written consent.
    • We reserve the right to request that any partner ceases republication of our content, including but not limited to if the guidelines listed above not being followed.
    • If you have any questions or concerns please contact [email protected]

Suggest your story or issue.

Send

Share Your Story.

Have a story idea? Interested in adding your voice to our growing community?

Learn more