Asia shipping & ports
Official trade statistics arrive weeks or months after the fact — but ships are visible from space today. Using satellite ship-tracking estimates from the IMF's PortWatch project, this page counts the ships calling at Asia's biggest ports and passing the narrow sea lanes world trade squeezes through — activity that tends to move weeks to months before the official export numbers it feeds into. One caveat up front: these are estimates of activity, not official customs data — they count ships, not the value of what's inside them.
Chokepoints
A handful of narrow passages carry an outsized share of world trade. When ships stop passing one, cargo is being delayed, rerouted the long way around, or not sent at all.
Shipping through the Strait of Malacca this week is running 7% below its pre-strikes (early 2026) pace.
Malacca: ships per day (7-day average)
224ships
−6.6% vs pre-strikes
as of 26 July 2026
Malacca: newest daily count
220ships
as of 26 July 2026
Malacca: pre-strikes level (90-day avg, before 22 February 2026)
240ships
Comparisons in this section are measured against the 90 days before 22 February 2026 — shortly before US strikes on Iran began — rather than a rolling recent window, so the comparison stays honest as time passes instead of quietly comparing the post-strikes period with itself.
Strait of Malacca — ships passing per day
The narrow passage between Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia is the main sea route between the Middle East and East Asia — most of the oil sailing from the Gulf to refineries and factories in China, Japan, and Korea comes through here.
Shown since January 2025. Daily satellite-based estimates; the most recent few days are often revised.
- Source:
- IMF PortWatch
- Newest data point:
- 26 July 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- daily
- Confidence:
- medium
Taiwan Strait — ships passing per day
The workhorse route of East Asian container trade — ships moving between China's big coastal ports, and between Northeast Asia and the rest of the world, pass through the strait between mainland China and Taiwan.
Shown since January 2025. Daily satellite-based estimates; the most recent few days are often revised.
- Source:
- IMF PortWatch
- Newest data point:
- 26 July 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- daily
- Confidence:
- medium
Suez Canal & Bab el-Mandeb — ships passing per day
The Asia–Europe shortcut: ships enter the Red Sea past Bab el-Mandeb at its southern end and leave through the Suez Canal at its northern end (or the reverse) — avoiding this route means sailing around Africa, roughly ten extra days at sea.
Shown since January 2025. Daily satellite-based estimates; the most recent few days are often revised. Traffic here fell sharply after attacks on Red Sea shipping began in late 2023 — before this chart's window opens — so 2025 already started from a reduced level.
- Source:
- IMF PortWatch
- Newest data point:
- 26 July 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- daily
- Confidence:
- medium
Asia's biggest ports
Ports are where factory output leaves the continent. Fewer ships calling at an export port usually means less cargo moving — and it shows up on satellites weeks to months before it shows up in official export statistics.
Port of Shanghai
The world's busiest container port and the main sea gateway for China's Yangtze Delta manufacturing belt.
Data unavailable — this source hasn't delivered data yet. Nothing is shown rather than something made up.
- Source:
- portwatch
- Confidence:
- medium
Port of Ningbo
Shanghai's southern neighbour (Ningbo–Zhoushan) and the world's biggest port by total cargo tonnage.
Daily satellite-based estimates since 2019 (IMF PortWatch history begins there); the most recent few days are often revised. A sustained drop in calls at an export port tends to show up in official export numbers months later.
- Source:
- IMF PortWatch
- Newest data point:
- 24 July 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- daily
- Confidence:
- medium
Port of Shenzhen
The sea gateway for the Pearl River Delta, China's electronics-manufacturing heartland.
Daily satellite-based estimates since 2019 (IMF PortWatch history begins there); the most recent few days are often revised. A sustained drop in calls at an export port tends to show up in official export numbers months later.
- Source:
- IMF PortWatch
- Newest data point:
- 24 July 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- daily
- Confidence:
- medium
Port of Busan
South Korea's main port — most of the country's container trade passes through it.
Daily satellite-based estimates since 2019 (IMF PortWatch history begins there); the most recent few days are often revised. A sustained drop in calls at an export port tends to show up in official export numbers months later.
- Source:
- IMF PortWatch
- Newest data point:
- 24 July 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- daily
- Confidence:
- medium
Port of Kaohsiung
Taiwan's biggest container port and the island's main sea gateway.
Daily satellite-based estimates since 2019 (IMF PortWatch history begins there); the most recent few days are often revised. A sustained drop in calls at an export port tends to show up in official export numbers months later.
- Source:
- IMF PortWatch
- Newest data point:
- 24 July 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- daily
- Confidence:
- medium
Port of Singapore
The world's biggest transshipment hub — so many Asian routes exchange cargo here that it acts as a thermometer for the whole region's trade.
Daily satellite-based estimates since 2019 (IMF PortWatch history begins there); the most recent few days are often revised. A sustained drop in calls at an export port tends to show up in official export numbers months later.
- Source:
- IMF PortWatch
- Newest data point:
- 24 July 2026
- Last checked:
- 29 July 2026
- Updates:
- daily
- Confidence:
- medium
How to read this page
A quiet stretch at a port or strait is a warning light, not a verdict. Weather, congestion, canal schedules, and holidays — Chinese ports empty out around Lunar New Year every winter — all move these counts for reasons that have nothing to do with the world economy, and satellite estimates get revised for recent days. Changes since the crisis began are correlated with it; correlation is not causation. Treat a sustained change as a reason to check the official numbers, not as a conclusion.
Oil's most important chokepoint has a page of its own: Strait of Hormuz. The official factory and export statistics these signals tend to lead are on the country pages.