Economic impact

The economic justification behind a road between Sisimiut and Kangerlussuaq is that it will link the international airport at Kangerlussuaq to Greenland’s second-largest town Sisimiut, and in the process, the Greenlandic west coast. Thus considerable savings will be made when:

• flights between Sisimiut and Kangerlussuaq can be discontinued 
• existing passengers between the west coast and Kangerlussuaq can have an affordable alternative
• airfreight goods to Greenland’s west coast can be transported by road or sea
• shipping of freight from Kangerlussuaq can discontinue
• Kangerlussuaq Harbour can be closed down

Impact assessment
This concluded that a road between Sisimiut and Kangerlussuaq would be a profitable investment from a socio-economic viewpoint. This was concluded, please note, without even considering the positive effects on commercial and industrial development that such a road would bring to the region.

Click here to read the financial calculations as well as accompanying appendices of the assessment (in Danish only).

The joint report of the Home Rule and Sisimiut Municipality also as a whole supported the socio-economic calculations made in the assessment.

Click here to the read the evaluation of the assessment in the joint report of the Home Rule and Municipality (in Danish only).

Business plan
In the autumn of 2006, Sisimiut Municipality published a business plan for Umimmak Traffic A/S, in which this company would lay the road and take on and operate all existing traffic infrastructure systems in the Municipality.

The background to this business plan is, among other things, that in the joint report, the Home Rule enquired about funding options for the road.

Furthermore, it makes sense to bring all the traffic infrastructure systems under one roof, since the derived economic effects of the laying of the road will vary from system to system, but will taken overall be positive, since the road is considered to be profitable from a socio-economic perspective.

Click here to view the business plan for Umimmak Traffic A/S (in Danish only)