Cape of Good Hope Trade Volume (7-Day Average)

## What this measures

The IMF's estimate of the cargo carried through the Cape of Good Hope, in metric tons per day, averaged over the trailing 7 days. PortWatch estimates each ship's load from its draft and dimensions and multiplies it by the ship's deadweight tonnage.

## Why it matters

The long way round Africa. Traffic here rises when ships avoid the Red Sea and Suez.

## How to read it

An estimate of tonnage, not value. It moves with the number and size of ships. It averaged about 48 transits a day from 2019 to 2023 and about 88 a day in 2024 and 2025: the diversion from the Red Sea, in one line.

## What it does not say

PortWatch depends on ships broadcasting AIS. Ships that switch it off, or whose signals are jammed or spoofed, are missed, which matters most in conflict areas. Counts are revised as more AIS data arrives, and the IMF may change its method. It counts ships, not where they came from or where they are going.

## Source

IMF PortWatch (portwatch.imf.org), daily chokepoint transit calls, read from the IMF's public PortWatch data service. PortWatch counts a transit when a ship crosses the chokepoint boundary, using Automatic Identification System (AIS) positions; a ship is counted again only after 48 hours. Method: Arslanalp, Koepke and Verschuur, "Tracking Trade from Space", IMF Working Paper WP/21/225. Source: International Monetary Fund, PortWatch. The data is available free of charge from the IMF. Palanor computes the 7-day averages; the IMF publishes daily figures. Read daily by /api/cron/portwatch-sync; PortWatch updates weekly, so the newest days arrive about a week late.