The NMC project is means for efficient, safe and sustainable transportation, connecting coastal areas and well enhancing regional development in the North Sea Region and the Northern Periphery Area. The project addresses the following issues: the development of regional maritime clusters, the promotion of Short Sea Shipping (SSS), transport in the petroleum and the seafood sector and risk management strategies. The project will be implemented in close co-operation with a similar project in the Interreg IIIB Northern Periphery Programme. Achievements: The Northern Maritime Corridor (NMC) is the term for a sea based transportation corridor that stretches from Northern Norway and North West Russia to the continent connecting the coastal areas of North Sea and the Northern Periphery. The project Northern Maritime Corridor (NMC) has developed efficient and sustainable maritime transport solutions, connecting the coastal regions bordering the North Sea and manufacturing industry in the North Sea basin with industrial development in the Barents region. The core approach has been to create an arena for networking, involve key actors from both the private sector and public sector and establish region-to-region cooperation.The region-to-region cooperation has in particular been materialised through the Short Sea Shipping initiatives. In addition business-to-business cooperation has materialised between ports and industries, like in the seafood industry.The cooperation with the Shortsea Promotion Centre in Norway on the Efficient transport Chain project has been particularly successful in the sense that the SPCN and NMC facilitated the development of tender specifications for an IT tool to improve the business processes for shipping lines, and then three shipping lines took the tender forward and purchased the IT tool on their own costs.A major means has been to organise Regional Maritime Clusters involving all relevant stakeholders, inviting stakeholders to transnational events under the project, encourage participation in transnational B2B events. In addition, workshops and international NMC conferences, comprising of region-to-region contacts and business-to-business contacts, have been encouraging. In this respect the establishment of regional maritime clusters has overall been instrumental.