The Northern Sea Route (NSR) and Its Impact on Singapore: Insights from Assoc Prof Yuen Kum Fai
In 2025, a Chinese container vessel called Istanbul Bridge arrived at Felixstowe, the UK’s largest container port, at the end of a roughly 7,500-nautical-mile journey from Ningbo, China, in just 21 days. It had made use of the Northern Sea Route (NSR). In comparison, the traditional route via the Suez Canal covers about 11,000 nautical miles and typically takes 40 to 50 days.
Associate Professor Yuen Kum Fai from NTU’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering highlighted several challenges to adopting the route. The cost to operate in the NSR is currently quite high due to the requirements of special-class vessels, as well as higher insurance premiums resulting from higher risks of accidents.
The development of the NSR is unlikely to impact Singapore as a maritime hub.
Assoc Prof Yuen states, “On trade lanes, the Europe-Asia corridor matters, but Singapore’s role is not limited to that. Singapore is fundamentally a global transhipment and network hub, connecting intra-Asia, Asia-Europe and Asia-North America flows via carrier networks and alliance routing.”
“Around 90 per cent of Singapore’s container throughput is transhipment, which shows that the hub function is about connectivity and service quality rather than only local import/export demand,” he adds.
