Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

The Council of Ministers of the Republic of Mali, presided over by General Assimi Goïta at Koulouba Palace, adopted on 6 February 2026 texts creating Société de Patrimoine Minier du Mali (SOPAMIM S.A.) — a wholly state-owned société anonyme charged with holding and managing all state participations in mining companies, implementing the 10% free-carry + optional 20% paid + 5% national-private participation architecture introduced by the 2023 Mining Code. SOPAMIM provides the single corporate vehicle through which renegotiated or newly-awarded state stakes in foreign-operated mines (including Barrick Gold Loulo-Gounkoto, B2Gold Fekola, Allied Gold Sadiola, Resolute Mining Syama, and Endeavour Mining Hounde-Mali) will be consolidated, operationalising the Code Minier's mandate for a *société de patrimoine* and closing the corporate-vehicle gap in Mali's AES/Sahel resource-nationalism architecture.

Zambia enacted the Income Tax (Amendment) (No. 2) Act No. 17 of 2025, assented to 23 December 2025 and effective 1 January 2026, introducing two mining-specific fiscal provisions. First, interest deductibility is capped at 30% of tax EBITDA for all companies, with unrelieved interest carry-forwardable for up to five years (general) or ten years for entities in mining and electricity generation. Second, mining companies deriving at least 75% of gross income in foreign exchange from outside Zambia may maintain their books of accounts in US dollars, reducing FX translation risk for dollar-denominated operators. Both measures are structurally distinct from the concurrent Act No. 10 of 2025 (Minimum Alternative Tax and loss carry-forward cap).

Senegal adopted a new Mining Code under President Bassirou Diomaye Faye's sovereignty-reform mandate, replacing the 2016 framework. The code strengthens the state's free-carried interest and participating-interest rights in mining operations, imposes stricter local-content requirements (processing, employment, procurement), and introduces enhanced royalty and revenue-capture provisions aligned with the WAEMU 2023 regional mining regulation. Community development plan obligations are also reinforced, and the code provides the legal foundation for the concurrent licence-revocation process overseen by the March 2026 National Commission review of 71 permits.

Zambia's Statutory Instrument No. 68 of 2025 under the Geological and Minerals Development Act 2022 establishes the first binding procurement-quota local-content regime in the Zambian copper-cobalt mining sector, entering into force 1 January 2026. Mining and mining-related companies must reserve a minimum 20% of their annual procurement budget for Zambian-owned or citizen-empowered suppliers of core mining goods and services, escalating to 25% in year two and 35% in year three, targeting 40% within five years. All non-core ancillary services (catering, security, haulage, cleaning, gardening) are reserved exclusively for Zambian-owned companies. The instrument operationalises the Minerals Regulation Commission created under the 2024 MRC Act and completes the ZM resource-nationalism statute stack.

The Bank of Zambia formally accepted Chinese renminbi (RMB/CNY) for copper and cobalt mining royalty and tax payments starting October 2025, making Zambia the first African country to establish an official RMB settlement channel for mining fiscal flows. In December 2025 the BoZ began publishing an official RMB-kwacha exchange rate to enable precise royalty and corporate tax calculations. The central bank cited efficiency grounds: Chinese mining companies operating Zambia's largest copper producers already receive export revenues in yuan from Chinese off-takers, making yuan-denominated tax settlement a natural extension that also reduces Zambia's Chinese-debt servicing friction. The policy embeds Chinese currency infrastructure into the sovereign fiscal architecture governing Zambia's copper and cobalt supply chain, deepening structural alignment between Zambia's resource sector and China's commodity-import ecosystem.

Tanzania's Minister for Minerals issued the Mining (Local Content) (Amendment) Regulations, 2025 via Government Notice No. 563 of 2025, published on 12 September 2025 and in force on the same day with no grace period. The amendment overhauls the Mining (Local Content) Regulations, 2018 (GN No. 3 of 2018) and introduces a new Regulation 13A empowering the Tanzania Mining Commission to publish — in the Gazette, on its website, and in nationwide media — a list of "reserved" goods and services that may be supplied only by an Indigenous Tanzanian Company (ITC) that is 100% Tanzanian-owned (no joint venture permitted in those reserved categories). For non-reserved categories, non- indigenous suppliers must form a JV with an ITC operating in the same line of business in which the ITC holds at least 20% equity, with the JV agreement subject to prior Mining Commission approval. Sole-sourced contracts above ~USD 10,000 must be notified to the Commission, and Local Content Plans must now include Banking Services and Procurement sub-plans, channelling mining-related financial transactions through Tanzanian-registered banks.

On 8 September 2025 at Prime Minister House in Islamabad, U.S. Strategic Metals (USSM, Missouri) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Pakistan's Frontier Works Organization (FWO, Pakistan Army-affiliated and the country's largest miner of critical minerals) committing to an initial USD 500 million investment programme covering antimony, copper, gold, tungsten, and rare-earth elements, with an envisaged poly-metallic refinery inside Pakistan. Embassy Islamabad Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Zach Harkenrider attended the signing. The first shipment of rare earths and other critical minerals from Pakistan to the United States was dispatched on 2 October 2025, marking the operational start of the partnership. The instrument forms the strategic- minerals limb of a broader Pakistan–U.S. realignment paired with U.S. EXIM Bank's USD 1.25 billion financing commitment for the Reko Diq copper-gold project (announced 10 December 2025) — a single coherent bilateral package positioning Pakistan as a non- PRC source of refined critical minerals to the United States.

Zambia enacted the Income Tax (Amendment) Act No. 10 of 2025 on 8 August 2025, gazetted 19 August 2025, introducing three interlocking fiscal measures. First, a 1% Minimum Alternative Tax (MAT) on annual turnover applies to all companies and partnerships, creditable against standard income tax with a five-year carry-forward — directly raising the floor tax burden on large copper and cobalt mining groups that have historically reported low taxable profits. Second, the 50% annual loss carry-forward cap (previously mining-sector-specific) is universalised, reducing the tax-shelter advantage for capital-intensive mining projects with front-loaded losses. Third, withholding tax on government-securities interest is raised from 15% to 20%.

Tanzania's Parliament enacted the Finance Act, No. 11 of 2025 on 30 June 2025 (presidential assent same day), in force 1 July 2025, introducing three structurally distinct amendments to the Mining Act, Cap. 123 that sit on top of the 2024-11-05 Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 4) Act and the 2025-09-12 Mining (Local Content) (Amendment) Regulations GN 563/2025. (i) New Section 113A creates an "HIV Response Levy" at 0.1% of gross mineral value, payable concurrently with mineral royalty by all mineral-right holders and licensees, allocated 70% to the AIDS Trust Fund (under the Tanzania Commission for AIDS Act, Cap. 379) and 30% to the Universal Health Insurance Fund (under the Universal Health Insurance Act, No. 12 of 2023). (ii) Section 59 of the Mining Act is amended to extend the 20% local-value-addition gold-allocation requirement (mandatory supply of refined gold to domestic smelting, refining, and trading operators) from holders of mineral-development agreements to **all** gold-licence holders with no carve-out. (iii) The withholding-tax rate on non-resident service providers under Section 60 is raised to 10% to incentivise use of local service providers. The amendments combine a new social-fund mineral levy, a horizontal expansion of the domestic-beneficiation mandate, and a tax-side push for service localisation — adding a fiscal-instrument layer on top of the 2024-25 critical-minerals classification and 2025 local-content reservation framework.

Pakistan launched the National Minerals Harmonisation Framework 2025 and the Mines & Minerals Act 2025 at the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum (Islamabad, 8–9 April 2025), consolidating six regulatory frameworks, eight legislative instruments, and 36 rule sets into a unified federal-provincial licensing system. The framework — convened by the SIFC and Deputy PM Ishaq Dar — establishes a two-tier licensing structure (large-scale: PKR 500M+; small-scale: PKR 25M–500M), mandatory appellate tribunal, and a "Mines and Minerals Force" to counter illegal mining in Sindh and Balochistan. Fiscal-incentive reforms aim to raise investor IRR from 14.5% to approximately 18%, underpinned by Reko Diq as the flagship precedent for future large-scale foreign-capital mineral projects.

The Government of Papua New Guinea released the Mining Bill 2025 for public consultation on 25 February 2025, with submissions due 4 April 2025, targeting Cabinet endorsement and parliamentary tabling by PNG's 50th Independence anniversary on 16 September 2025. The Bill replaces the Mining Act 1992 and formalises a "Take Back PNG" resource-nationalist framework: the State gains a right to acquire up to 30% equity in any mining project on deferred-payment terms, royalties are tiered at 5% gross revenue (where State takes equity) or 10% gross revenue (where it does not), and mining-lease holders must offer at least 50% of production to domestic smelters/refineries where such capacity exists. Projects at Wafi-Golpu and Frieda River are grandfathered under the 1992 Act.

Loi n° 2024-1109 du 18 décembre 2024 portant Budget de l'État pour l'année 2025 (and its annexe fiscale, JO n° 21 of 26 December 2024, entered into force 10 January 2025) raises Côte d'Ivoire's gold ad valorem royalty (taxe ad valorem sur l'or) by two percentage points across all five price tiers — from 3% to 5% at gold ≤ USD 1,000/oz up to 6% to 8% at gold > USD 2,000/oz. The increase applies to all gold producers operating under the Code Minier régime and is collected on the value of gold extracted at the applicable USD-per-ounce reference price. First IPTM entry for Côte d'Ivoire; sits alongside the wider West/Central African mining-fiscal-tightening cycle (Mali 2024 implementing decree, Burkina Faso 2024 ALT mining code, Madagascar 2023 mining code refonte) and reflects a Ouattara-government posture of capturing more of the gold-price super-cycle for the state budget.

Mauritania's Loi n°2024-045 of 18 December 2024 establishes a horizontal local-content statutory framework covering the mining, hydrocarbons, gas, and energy sectors. The law requires operators and their subcontractors to submit triennial forecasting plans and annual performance reports on national employment and local-supplier integration, and mandates a Conseil National du Contenu Local to develop national strategy and policy. An implementing decree approved by the Council of Ministers on 2 September 2025 operationalises the law's institutional architecture, creating a digital monitoring platform for centralised employment and subcontracting traceability and introducing performance-incentive and administrative-sanction regimes.

Tanzania's Parliament passed the Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 4) Act, 2024 (Bill No. 15 of 2024, published in the Special Gazette of the United Republic of Tanzania No. 34 Vol. 105 on 5 November 2024), which amends eight statutes including the Mining Act, Cap. 123. The mining-related provisions: (i) empower the Minister for Minerals, on recommendation from the Geological Survey of Tanzania (GST), to declare specific minerals as "critical" (essential to national economic, geopolitical, technology, or industrial use with limited or threatened supply) or "strategic" (mineral resources with diplomatic or defence importance) — the first Tanzanian statutory authority to do so; (ii) raise the minimum capital investment for a Mining Licence from USD 100,000 to USD 5,000,000 (a 50× hike pricing out junior explorers); (iii) authorise gemstone export following government-organised mineral auctions or international gem fairs while reaffirming the general beneficiation-in-Tanzania requirement on raw minerals and concentrates; (iv) require GST verification of mineral data on samples exported by mineral right holders; and (v) impose penalties for inaccurate or false mineral-data submissions. The Act establishes the gateway statutory authority for any future Tanzania critical- mineral export-control or stockpiling regime.

Zambia's Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development, under Minister Hon. Paul C. Kabuswe, launched the National Critical Minerals Strategy 2024-2028 on 27 August 2024 following Cabinet approval, alongside the National Three Million Tonnes Copper Production Strategy by 2031. The strategy designates copper, cobalt, nickel, lithium, manganese, graphite, tin, uranium and rare earth elements as Zambia's strategic critical minerals and is built on four pillars: geological knowledge and resource management; value addition and local processing; government participation through a special-purpose vehicle taking up to 30% equity in new strategic projects; and regulatory and institutional reform. It is the first standalone Zambian industrial-policy framework for critical-minerals beneficiation and the first ZM action in the IPTM register.

Décret n°2024-0396/PT-RM of 9 July 2024 fixes the conditions and modalities for applying Loi n°2023-040 of 29 August 2023 (the new Code Minier of the Republic of Mali). The decree, adopted in Council of Ministers on 3 July 2024 and signed by the transition presidency, operationalises the 2023 statute that replaces the 2019 mining code (Loi n°2019-022). The new framework raises maximum cumulative state-plus-Malian-private participation in mining ventures to roughly 30–35% (10% free-carry to the state, plus an additional 20% paid participation right and 5% reserved to local private investors), reshapes the fiscal regime (royalties, taxes, exemptions) for new permits and conventions, and pairs with companion local-content Loi n°2023-041 of the same date. The 2024 implementing decree is the operative trigger date for downstream investor disputes (Barrick Loulo-Gounkoto suspension, B2Gold Fekola contract renegotiations, Allied Gold Sadiola, Ganfeng Goulamina lithium ramp).

The Mining (New Porgera) (Amendment) Act 2023 (Act No. 16 of 2023), passed by Papua New Guinea's National Parliament on 29 November 2023 and certified 30 November 2023, created the statutory framework enabling the Porgera gold mine to reopen under the New Porgera Ltd joint venture — with PNG state and local stakeholders holding 51% and Barrick Gold 49%. The Act formalised four agreements signed on 13 October 2023 (Mining Development Contract, Special Mining Lease 13, Fiscal Stability Agreement, and Landowner Compensation Escrow), allowing the mine to resume operations on 22 December 2023 after a 2020 closure when the Marape government refused to renew Barrick Niugini Limited's prior special mining lease. This 51% state-and-community majority template now governs the legal architecture for all future PNG resource concessions.

Loi n° 2023-040 of 29 August 2023, adopted by the Conseil National de Transition (CNT) and promulgated by the Président de la Transition Colonel Assimi Goïta, repeals and replaces the prior Mali Code Minier (Ordonnance n° 2019-022/P-RM du 27 septembre 2019) and constitutes the foundational mining statute for all mineral-title issuance, foreign-investment participation, fiscal architecture, and state-control mechanisms in the Republic of Mali. Key structural innovations include a 35% Malian-side equity floor (10% free-carry to the state + 20% paid- participation option + 5% reserved to local Malian private investors), a special permitting regime for substances minérales d'intérêt stratégique (lithium, uranium, thorium, tungsten, tantalite, cobalt, and rare-earth elements), and zones d'intérêt stratégique reserved for the state and state-controlled vehicles. The Code is the parent statute under which Décret n° 2024-0396/PT-RM (the 2024 implementing decree) and Loi n° 2023-041 (the companion local-content law) operate, and under which the Barrick Loulo-Gounkoto standoff, B2Gold Fekola renegotiation, Allied Gold Sadiola settlement, and Ganfeng Goulamina fiscal escalation are situated.

Loi n° 2023-041 of 29 August 2023 establishes Mali's mandatory local-content framework for the mining sector, requiring titulaires de permis miniers and their sub-contractors to prioritise Malian nationals, local communities, national enterprises, and locally produced goods and services in the procurement and execution of all mining activities. The law mandates three-year renewable procurement plans with cascading preference from Malian citizens to ECOWAS citizens to others, and imposes capacity-building, training, and technology-transfer obligations on licence-holders. It is the procurement-side companion statute to the simultaneously adopted Code Minier (Loi 2023-040), operating under its own implementing decree Décret 2024-0397/PT-RM (July 2024).

On 17 June 2023, the Prime Minister's Office issued a formal notification establishing the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), an apex civil-military body chaired by the Prime Minister with the Chief of Army Staff and federal/ provincial leadership as members. SIFC operates as a "single window" to fast-track foreign direct investment in five strategic sectors: Defence Production, Agriculture and Livestock, Minerals, IT and Telecommunication, and Energy. The council is the principal vehicle through which Pakistan is channelling Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sovereign capital — Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain — into headline projects including the Reko Diq copper-gold restart, Saudi/UAE minerals MoUs, and the 2025 Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum. SIFC received statutory backing on 18 August 2023 via the Board of Investment (Amendment) Act, 2023, which inserted Chapter II-A giving SIFC overriding authority over other laws.

On 16 June 2023, the Council of Ministers of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) adopted Règlement N°02/2023/CM/UEMOA establishing a Community Mining Code, the first regional harmonisation of mining law across the 8-nation bloc in over 20 years (repealing Règlement N°18/2003/CM/UEMOA). The code harmonises licensing tracks (reconnaissance → exploration → mining), royalty and tax standards, rehabilitation and closure fund obligations, and community-contribution requirements across Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. Member states are required to transpose the code into national law within a prescribed conformity period; the Commission has developed three draft implementing regulations covering permit management, rehabilitation fund procedures, and applicable rights/royalties/taxes.

The Mines and Minerals Development (Amendment) Act, No. 29 of 2022 restructures Zambia's Mineral Royalty Tax (MRT) on copper from a flat rate to a four-band price-linked sliding scale, effective 1 January 2023. Under the new regime, copper royalties range from 4% of norm value when the LME price is below USD 4,000/tonne to 10% when prices exceed USD 7,000/tonne — at prevailing LME copper prices (~USD 9,000–10,000/t in 2024–2026), the effective rate is 10%, one of the highest copper royalty rates in the global copper belt. The Act also codifies flat royalty rates for other base metals (5%), gemstones (6%), and precious metals (6%), and abolishes the prior flat-rate copper royalty that applied regardless of commodity-cycle position, materially increasing state rent capture in high-price environments while preserving a 4% floor for project viability at low prices.

The Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 2021 (Act No. 43 of 2021), assented 30 December 2021 and in force from 1 January 2022, re-introduces the deductibility of Mineral Royalty Tax (MRT) paid under the Mines and Minerals Development Act, 2015 when computing a mining company's taxable income for corporate income tax purposes. The Act removes mineral royalty from the list of non-deductible expenditures in section 44 of the Income Tax Act, reversing a non-deductibility rule that had applied since a 2015-era amendment and that mining companies and industry stakeholders had argued produced double taxation of the same revenue stream. Deductibility is conditional on the royalty having actually been paid for the charge year.

On 27 January 2018 the DRC National Assembly adopted Loi n° 18/001, comprehensively amending the foundational 2002 Mining Code (Loi n° 007/2002); President Joseph Kabila promulgated the law on 9 March 2018, published in the Journal Officiel special issue of 28 March 2018, with implementing Décret n° 18/024 (Règlement Minier) following on 8 June 2018. The Code introduces a 10% royalty on minerals designated "strategic" by the Council of Ministers — cobalt, coltan, lithium, and germanium confirmed — up from the 2% standard non-ferrous rate, and raises all standard mining royalties (non-ferrous 2→3.5%, precious metals 2.5→3.5%, precious stones 4→6%). The state's mandatory free-carry interest in new mining projects is doubled from 5% to 10% (Article 71), with a further 10% paid-carry option creating an effective 20% state-participation floor; contract-stability guarantees are simultaneously curtailed from 10 to 5 years (Article 276), explicitly invalidating pre-existing stabilisation clauses. As the foundational statute governing every DRC mining-rights grant, royalty-rate setting, and export-control delegation, the 2018 Code is the parent authority for ARECOMS (established 2019 under its strategic-minerals framework) and the legal basis for both the 2025 cobalt export-ban/quota regime and the 2025 artisanal-processing suspension — making it the mandatory upstream context for the entire filed DRC action cluster.

Tanzania's Parliament enacted Act No. 5 of 2017, the Natural Wealth and Resources (Permanent Sovereignty) Act, as part of a landmark resource-nationalism legislative trio (alongside Act No. 6 on unconscionable contract renegotiation and Written Laws Miscellaneous Amendments No. 7), signed into law by President John Magufuli on 4 July 2017. The Act vests all of Tanzania's natural wealth and resources — minerals, oil and natural gas, fisheries, wildlife, forestry, water, and related sub-surface assets — as the permanent and inalienable property of the People of the United Republic, held in trust by the President on their behalf. Key operative provisions prohibit international commercial arbitration of natural-resource disputes (mandating adjudication within Tanzanian courts under Tanzanian law), empower Parliament to review and require renegotiation of any natural-resource arrangement containing "unconscionable terms," impose an in-country banking rule on earnings from natural wealth extraction, and authorise statutory override of contractual stabilisation clauses embedded in pre-2017 mining development agreements. The Act is the foundational parent statute underpinning all subsequent Tanzanian mining-sector reform, including the 2024 Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 4) Act critical/strategic minerals classification and the 2025 Finance Act mining amendments.

Loi n° 2014-138, adopted by the Assemblée nationale and promulgated by President Alassane Ouattara on 24 March 2014, is the foundational mining-rights statute governing all mineral prospecting, research, and exploitation in Côte d'Ivoire. Its 197 articles across 16 titles repeal the prior Loi n° 95-553 (1995 Code Minier) and establish the modern permit regime, a 10% state free-carry in all industrial mining projects via SODEMI, and the royalty + ad valorem fiscal architecture that underpins every subsequent mining-convention and fiscal-law amendment. As West Africa's second-largest gold producer (approx. 45 t/yr) with growing bauxite and manganese exploration, CI's mining-code architecture is a material determinant of supply-chain access for Western and Chinese industrial consumers of these commodities.