The Potential Impact Of The Arctic Shipping Routes On The Shipping Industry Of China's Coastal Provinces

With global warming,the arctic ice speeds up melting,which causes the cover area of arctic sea ice continue to shrink in summer.So the possibility of opening the arctic shipping routes increases greatly.At present,the arctic shipping routes are in the stage of commercial trial.However,there is the controversy that the arctic shipping routes have a cost advantage over the traditional shipping routes in academia.Whether shipping companies will choose the arctic shipping routes for ocean shipping depends on whether the shipping costs of the arctic shipping routes are lower than that of the traditional ones,so in order to judge whether the arctic shipping routes are more economical than the traditional ones,the shipping costs of ships via the arctic shipping routes and the traditional ones are estimated respectively by using the marine shipping cost accounting method,based on the selection of sample countries,sample ports and sample ship types.And the costs of both of them are compared.On this basis,the potential effect of opening the arctic shipping routes on the shipping industry of China's coastal provinces is analyzed from theoretical and empirical aspects.In theory,the impact of the routes choice of shipping companies on the foreign trade of China's coastal provinces and the impact of them on their shipping industry are analyzed.In the empirical aspect,firstly,the factor of sea ice is involved in the gravity model by substituting navigation time for shipping distances,by which the traditional trade gravity model is modified;Secondly,the core variable of the value of foreign trade is used to establish the econometric models about the waterway freight volume and the foreign trade cargo throughput;Finally,forecasting model about the waterway freight volume and the foreign trade cargo throughput of China's coastal provinces is established.The empirical results show that firstly,the arctic shipping routes have the cost advantage over the traditional ones in the fuel cost and the total shipping cost,and have a relative disadvantage over them in the charter hire.And the total port charges of the arctic shipping routes and the traditional ones are nearly equal.In the absence of icebreaking service,the arctic shipping routes have the cost advantage over the traditional ones in the transit expenses,but in the case of the need of icebreaking service,they have a relative disadvantage over the traditional ones in this cost.Compared with need of icebreaking service,the arctic shipping routes have the advantage in the total shipping cost greater than the traditional ones in the case of no icebreaking service.To be specific,the fuel cost of ships via the arctic shipping routes is about 15% less than that of the traditional ones,but the charter hire is about 36.5% higher.In the case of the need of icebreaking service,compared with the traditional shipping routes,the total shipping cost of ships via the arctic ones will be saved about 2.4%,but their transit expenses will raise 12.4%.In the absence of icebreaking service,compared with the traditional shipping routes,the total shipping cost of ships via the arctic ones will be saved about 9.2% due to no transit expenses;Secondly,compared with the traditional shipping routes,using the arctic ones from Shanghai port to ports of Russia,Canada,the United States(northeast),Norway and the United Kingdom for ships has a cost advantage with or without icebreaking services.Compared with the need of icebreaking service,using the arctic shipping routes from Shanghai port to ports of Russia,Canada,the United States(northeast),Norway and the United Kingdom for ships has a greater cost advantage than using the traditional ones for them without icebreaking services;Finally,if China's coastal provinces use the arctic shipping routes instead of the traditional ones for their foreign trade with the countries along the routes,the waterway freight volume and the foreign trade cargo throughput of them will increase by 2.46% and 2.41% respectively.