The Global Cycle of Tightening Monetary Policies Has Begun, Putting Cross-border Logistics of Large Foundation Pile Components under Pressure And Forcing Adjustments.

The new chairman of the Federal Reserve has released a hawkish signal, with multiple central banks raising interest rates simultaneously. Global financing costs have risen, and commodity prices have weakened simultaneously. The tightening of macro liquidity has directly transmitted to the ocean shipping industry chain. The export logistics of heavy engineering equipment such as rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers are facing multiple adjustment pressures in terms of costs, orders, and freight rates.

Global financing costs rise, equipment foreign trade and logistics companies' willingness to expand shrinks

The Federal Reserve has removed its interest rate cut guidelines, postponed the interest rate cut cycle, and coupled with consecutive interest rate hikes in Japan, Europe, and Southeast Asia, global credit rates have risen across the board. The cost of working capital loans for engineering machinery manufacturers to purchase steel and components has increased, and the financing threshold for overseas infrastructure investors to start construction and purchase rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers has also been raised. Overseas customers have significantly delayed their plans for bulk procurement of pile foundation equipment, resulting in a slowdown in long-term supply growth for large logistics items; The investment plan of shipping companies to purchase heavy lift vessels and expand overseas warehousing with loans has been postponed, and the market's investment in new large-scale transportation capacity has been significantly reduced.

Precious metals plummet, inflation risk persists, fuel surcharge remains high

The sharp drop in gold and silver reflects a brief retreat in market risk aversion, but the high prices of crude oil pushed up by the Middle East conflict and the sustained global inflationary pressure have not eased. The fuel expenditure of special ships carrying large pile foundation equipment continues to remain high, and shipping companies continue to maintain high fuel surcharges and will not lower freight rates with the decline in gold prices. The cost of single piece sea freight fuel for rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers accounts for a high proportion, and the comprehensive logistics quotation continues to rise. The cost of import and export is squeezed, and the profit margin of engineering machinery export enterprises continues to narrow.

Multiple countries raise interest rates to stabilize their currencies, leading to differentiated demand for regional equipment imports and exports

Indonesia, Australia, Denmark and other countries have raised interest rates to stabilize their currencies, leading to significant differentiation in infrastructure markets in different regions. The pressure of currency depreciation in Southeast Asian countries has eased, and the exchange cost for local infrastructure companies to purchase domestically produced pile foundation equipment has slightly decreased. The resilience of large orders on Southeast Asian routes is strong; The European and American markets are suppressed by high interest rates, infrastructure investment continues to cool down, import demand for rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers weakens, and the utilization rate of cabin space on routes to Europe and North America declines, putting pressure on long-term sea freight rates.

Monetary policy uncertainty intensifies, large logistics abandon long-term price locking mode

The Federal Reserve has comprehensively reformed its policy communication framework, making it difficult for the market to predict the subsequent trend of interest rates, and the volatility of global shipping forward rate contracts has intensified. In the past, foreign trade enterprises would lock in large cargo spaces for six months to one year in advance through long-term agreements, but now they have generally switched to short-term temporary booking and batch shipment models. Logistics companies are reducing long-term transportation capacity investment on fixed routes and implementing modular split transportation and multi-channel diversion schemes for rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers to avoid the risk of significant freight losses caused by interest rate fluctuations.

Multiple central banks are intensively discussing interest rates, and cross-border supply chain risk control is comprehensively upgraded

Multiple central banks have released interest rate decisions in a concentrated manner, and the market predicts that a new round of tightening policies may still be implemented, indicating the continued existence of macroeconomic volatility risks. Foreign trade and logistics enterprises of construction machinery are simultaneously tightening risk control, controlling the scale of large batch orders for complete machines going abroad, and synchronously coordinating with the China Europe freight train land transportation and Southeast Asia transit sea transportation to divert sources of goods, reducing dependence on a single ocean route, and using diversified transportation layout to hedge the dual risks of logistics and market caused by global currency tightening.