INTERVIEW: SAP to offer Russia client center for Northern Sea Route

MOSCOW, Sep 2 (PRIME) -- German software producer SAP will discuss with Russian authorities at the Eastern Economic Forum the idea of a single communication center for clients of the Northern Sea Route, as IT solutions could improve the shipping way’s popularity, Pavel Gontarev, SAP’s director for the CIS, said Friday in an interview.

“We think the task of exploration of the Arctic region and promotion of the Northern Sea Route as a transit corridor is a strategic task for Russia in the next few years…There is a lot of short-term potential for commercial use, a lot of opportunities to realize benefits just now,” Gontarev said.

The resource is being underused. “Evidently, in order to fully exploit the route, we need, first, infrastructure and then technologies. And the latter factor seems the key one for us. We think the most important factor of hyping up the Northern Sea Route as a transit corridor is the creation of a service for shippers and potential buyers of transportation services.”

SAP suggests designing a center for effective communication between participants of cargo carriage. An electronic platform will provide an order; calculate the price of a service and terms of delivery. “We will publicly announce the idea at the forum. We will talk about it with the Transport Ministry, (shipping company) Sovcomflot and regions,” the executive said.

The Eastern Economic Forum is being held in the country’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok on Friday–Saturday.

The costs of implementation of such a system will be several hundreds of millions of rubles. Investments could pay back much better than contributions to port infrastructure. The system will make the route more attractive for carriers from Japan, South Korea and northern China to deliver goods to Europe.

“We see a huge flow of goods from there and back. It circumvents Russia today. We count on making these goods take the Northern Sea Route, thanks, among others, to availability of this channel as a service,” Gontarev said.

“Besides, it will raise revenue of Sovcomflot, Atomflot (services nuclear ice-breakers), revenue of all ports located on the transshipment way from Vladivostok to Murmansk. People will start building reloading ports, live in these areas and work. That is just what is needed to develop regions.”

SAP also cooperates in the sphere of IT solutions with local big companies, including truck giant Kamaz and steelmaker Severtal, which are testing Internet of Things ideas, Gontarev said.

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