About the Project

The Economic World Institute Kiel created an AI-based leading indicator for international trade based on real-time data from global container shipping. Based on up to 250,000 continuously collected data points from up to 200,000 position data and up to 50,000 additional data on inlets and outlets, provided by FleetMon, the Kiel scientists offer continuous monitoring of imports and exports of the largest economies China, Europe, and the USA.

The Kiel Trade Indicator estimates the trade flows (imports and exports) for 75 countries worldwide, the EU, and world trade as a whole. The basis is the evaluation of ship movement data in real-time. An algorithm programmed at IfW Kiel evaluates this with the help of artificial intelligence and translates the ship movements into nominal, seasonally adjusted growth values ​​compared to the previous month.

The evaluation takes place twice a month. Around the 20th (with press release) for the current and the following month and around the 3rd (without press release) for the previous and current month.

Ships arriving and departing are recorded for 500 ports worldwide. In addition, ship movements in 100 sea regions are analyzed and the effective capacity utilization of the container ships is measured based on the draft. By using country-port correlations, forecasts can be made, even for countries without a deep-sea port.

The Kiel Trade Indicator is available much earlier than the previous leading indicators for trade. It is much more comprehensive, relies on a uniquely extensive database with the help of big data, and shows a comparatively low statistical error. The algorithm of the Kiel Trade Indicator learns with increasing data availability (machine learning) so that the forecast quality improves over time.