RWI/ISL- Container Throughput Index

Container Throughput Index: Strong rise in September masks the risks

30.10.2026

Global container throughput rose sharply in September compared with the previous month. In Chinese ports in particular, it rose sharply by six per cent following a prolonged period of weakness. One reason for this is likely to be the effect of business being brought forward ahead of the public holidays in early October. Container throughput also picked up in the rest of the world. This is likely to partly reflect the global AI boom, which is driving trade in electrical engineering.

The essence in a nutshell:

Container throughput at international ports rose sharply in September from 142.4 (revised) to 146.8 index points.
The Nordrange Index, which is regarded as a leading indicator of economic development in the northern eurozone, particularly in Germany, also rose in September, with an increase from 123.9 points (revised) to 124.5 points
In Chinese ports, the index climbed particularly sharply – from 156.5 (revised) to 165.9 points.
The RWI/ISL Container Throughput Index for October 2026 will be published on 30 November 2026.

Torsten Schmidt

RWI-Konjunkturchef

Global trade is proving to be more resilient than we had anticipated during the Iran war. However, this does not mean we can rest easy. The sharp rise in September is likely to be largely due to a one-off effect in China: ahead of ‘Golden Week’ around the National Day holiday, when many factories shut down, exporters appear to have brought forward a particularly large number of shipments this year. As a result, cargo handling in Chinese ports is likely to slow down again in October. Above all, however, the consequences of the war are not yet over: high energy costs are working their way through the supply chains and gradually making more and more goods more expensive. A harsh winter or a renewed escalation in the Gulf could exacerbate the shortage of diesel and heating oil and drive the already high inflation even higher.

About the RWI/ISL Container Throughput Index:

The index includes data on container throughput collected on an ongoing basis by the ISL Monthly Container Port Monitor from 90 international ports, which account for around 64 percent of global container throughput. The current flash estimate for the container throughput index is based on data from 66 percent of the throughput represented in the index. Since international trade is mainly conducted by sea, container transshipments allow reliable conclusions to be drawn about world trade. Because many ports report on their activities just two weeks after the end of a month, the RWI/ISL Container Transshipment Index is a reliable early indicator of developments in international trade in manufactured goods and thus also of global economic activity.

The Container Throughput Index is part of the foreign trade statistics in the Federal Statistical Office’s „Dashboard Deutschland“

Data series for individual ports are available in the ISL Monthly Container Port Monitor

Further background information on the RWI/ISL Container Throughput Index can be found at www.rwi-essen.de/containerindex