New Delhi, Aug. 15 -- Sea Legend, a Chinese shipping company, on Saturday, begins the first regular service along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), a vital Arctic maritime corridor that Moscow is seeking to develop into a major trade link between Europe and Asia

Running between Ningbo in eastern China and Felixstowe in Britain, the service is expected to take 20 days -about half the time it takes for shipments from China to Europe via the Suez Canal.

Though other shipping companies have transited the Arctic passage before (Denmark's Maersk was the first to do so in 2018), Sea Legend will become the first operator to run a regular container service through the NSR, for a seven-week period until October 3.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ha...