The fact that investments in new icebreakers end up in the government’s national ten-year plan for the first time is met with positive reactions.
According to Katarina Norén, Director General of the Swedish Maritime Administration, the government’s announcement is gratifying.
“Modern icebreakers are a prerequisite for the enormous investments in industry in Norrland to reach full effect,” she says in a press release.
The Swedish Maritime Administration’s five current state icebreakers were built in the 1970s and are out of date. The Swedish Maritime Administration has argued that new ones should be financed via the national plan for transport infrastructure.
“The icebreakers will benefit the entire Swedish industry”
And when the government’s priorities within the plan for 2022–2033 were presented on Monday, funding for two new and more climate-friendly icebreakers was included for a cost of close to SEK 3.5 billion, according to the agency. In addition, it opens up to later, if necessary, invest in a third.
The industry body Skogsindustrierna, in turn, writes that the icebreaker initiative will be “for the benefit of all of Sweden’s industry”.
Swedish Maritime also welcomes the fact that the government is focusing on shipping.
“The investments are important for a trade-dependent country like Sweden, where more than 90 percent of exports and imports go to sea,” the industry body writes.
Facts: Five own icebreakers
The Swedish Maritime Administration has five icebreakers of its own: Ale, Atle, Frej, Oden and Ymer. If necessary, external resources are hired in the form of, among other things, tugs.
The Swedish Maritime Administration breaks ice at sea and assists, directs, leads and tows ships that have problems arriving.
For some years now, Sweden and Finland have been working very closely together on icebreaking, which may mean that it is sometimes a Finnish icebreaker that assists traffic to a Swedish port and vice versa.
Source: Swedish Maritime Administration
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