Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The European Commission on 4 March 2026 adopted COM(2026) 100 final, the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), the central horizontal industrial- policy instrument of the 2024-29 Commission term. The proposal targets raising EU manufacturing's share of GDP from 14.3% (2024) to at least 20% by 2035 via three pillars: (i) demand-side "Made in EU" and low-carbon public-procurement preferences for strategic sectors; (ii) FDI conditionality on investments above €100 million from countries with >40% global manufacturing share in batteries, EVs, solar PV or critical raw materials; (iii) accelerated permitting through a one-stop-shop and member-state-designated Industrial Acceleration Areas. The IAA is a proposal — co-decision adoption is expected mid-to-late 2027.

On 27 December 2025, Codelco and SQM formally closed NovaAndino Litio SpA, the 50:50 joint venture (with a golden share for state-owned Codelco) mandated by the 2023 National Lithium Strategy to bring the Salar de Atacama under state operational control. The vehicle is formed by merging Codelco's subsidiary Minera Tarar SpA with SQM's SQM Salar SpA, governed by a six-director board (three Codelco, three SQM), and runs until 2060 under a CORFO contract amendment that extends operations beyond SQM's previous 2030 lease expiry. SQM manages operations 2025-2030, Codelco from 2031 onward; the Chilean state captures up to ~70% of operating margins through 2030 and ~85% from 2031. As part of the closing, SQM transferred all of its mining concessions in the Salar de Maricunga to Codelco. President Boric and the Cabinet Económico formally endorsed the venture on 29 December 2025, when the first board meeting was held in Santiago.

On 16 December 2025 the European Commission adopted the Communication on a Battery Booster Strategy (later published in the Official Journal as C/2026/682), part of the EU Automotive Package presented alongside the CO2 emission-standards review, the Automotive Omnibus simplification, and the Corporate Vehicle Decarbonisation initiative. The Battery Booster envelopes EUR 1.8bn of EU-budget support for the European battery value chain: EUR 1.5bn from the Innovation Fund as interest-free loans for European battery cell producers ramping to giga-scale output (delivered through a dedicated Battery Booster Facility, with the implementing Commission Decision in stakeholder consultation through 15 March 2026), plus EUR 300m for critical raw materials projects in Europe. The strategy is the first standalone EU industrial-finance instrument targeted exclusively at battery cell manufacturing, and is paired with RESourceEU (3 Dec 2025) and the Industrial Accelerator Act proposal (4 Mar 2026) to stitch together upstream CRM, midstream cell production and downstream automotive demand.

The European Commission approved a EUR 90.8 million (USD ~104.4 million) Innovation Fund grant for LG Energy Solution Wrocław Limited Liability Company on 5 November 2025, funding the "46inEU — Powering the Future: 46 Cylinders, Infinite Possibilities in Europe" project at LG's existing Wrocław, Poland site. CINEA (the EU's Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency) lists 46inEU's status as "Grant signed" under the Innovation Fund's 2024 Battery call (IF24 Battery), which produces Li-ion NCMA (nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminium) cylindrical cells for electric vehicles. The grant is one of five signed under the IF24 Battery call's EUR 643 million cohort announced by CINEA on 10 November 2025.

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and General Administration of Customs (GAC) jointly issued Announcement No. 58 of 2025 on 9 October 2025, adding high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries (cells and packs, >=300 Wh/kg), artificial graphite anode materials, related production equipment, and key manufacturing technologies to the dual-use export control list under licence requirement. The controls were scheduled to take effect 8 November 2025 but were suspended the day before via Announcement No. 70 (2025), which deferred entry-into-force until 10 November 2026 in the context of the US-China Busan economic-trade arrangement. Controls remain legislatively adopted and will become operative unless the suspension is renewed or withdrawn.

H.R.1, the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (Public Law 119-21), was signed into law by President Trump on 4 July 2025. The budget-reconciliation statute is the single largest reversal of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) industrial-policy framework: it accelerates the termination of IRA-era clean- energy tax credits and overlays a new "Foreign Entity of Concern" (FEOC) / "Prohibited Foreign Entity" (PFE) regime on the credits that survive. The §25E used-EV credit, the §30D new clean-vehicle credit, the §45W commercial clean-vehicle credit, and the §30C alternative-fuel-refueling-property credit terminate for vehicles or property placed in service after 30 September 2025. The §25C energy-efficient home improvement credit and the §25D residential clean-energy credit terminate for property placed in service after 31 December 2025. The §45Y clean-electricity production credit and §48E clean-electricity investment credit are eliminated for wind and solar facilities placed in service after 31 December 2027, with a safe harbour for projects whose construction begins on or before 4 July 2026. From 1 January 2026, projects beginning construction must satisfy "material assistance" thresholds limiting the share of components, subcomponents and critical minerals sourced from prohibited foreign entities (PRC, Russia, Iran, DPRK and entities controlled by them). For §45Y/§48E facilities the threshold starts at 40% non-PFE content in 2026 and steps up by 5 percentage points per year through 2030; for §45X advanced manufacturing PTC the analogous schedule begins at 50% in 2026 and rises through the decade. CBO scored the package's energy-credit terminations as generating roughly USD 280bn of revenue (gross), of which USD 77.4bn from §25D termination, USD 21.2bn from §25C, USD 77.8bn from §30D, USD 104.5bn from §45W, and USD 2bn from §30C, partially offsetting the bill's other tax cuts. The bill simultaneously re-authorises and broadens the §48D advanced manufacturing investment tax credit for semiconductor fabs, raising the credit rate from 25% to 35% for property placed in service after 31 December 2025 (preserving the CHIPS Act-aligned semiconductor leg of the IRA-era stack). The OBBBA therefore reshapes the IRA from a broad-based clean-energy + EV + manufacturing pull-through into a narrower, China-decoupling industrial policy concentrated on semiconductors and (residually) §45X battery / critical- mineral processing.

Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 28 Tahun 2025 tentang Penyelenggaraan Perizinan Berusaha Berbasis Risiko ("PP 28/2025") is the cross-sector business-licensing parent statute signed by President Prabowo Subianto on 5 June 2025, replacing PP 5/2021. It expands the Online Single Submission (OSS) risk-based licensing system to six new sectors (creative economy, geospatial information, cooperatives, investment, electronic system & transaction operators, environment), integrates environmental permitting (AMDAL/UKL-UPL) into OSS, and strengthens layered administrative sanctions. Appendix 1F operationalises a de-facto moratorium: the OSS platform now blocks new business-permit applications for intermediate-nickel production lines — nickel matte, mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP), nickel pig iron (NPI), and ferronickel — pushing investment toward higher-value Class-1 / battery-grade nickel sulphate and precursor chemistry. After a four-month grace period, OSS enforcement notifications began October–November 2025, prompting FINI (Indonesian Nickel Smelting Association) exemption petitions on behalf of partially-built projects.

Government Regulation No. 19 of 2025 on Types and Rates of Non-Tax State Revenue (PNBP) applicable to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, signed by President Prabowo Subianto on 11 Apr 2025 and effective 26 Apr 2025 (15 working days after promulgation), revokes PP 26/2022 and replaces fixed mining royalty rates with a progressive tiered system anchored to international benchmark prices (HMA for nickel, HBA for coal). Headline shifts: nickel ore from fixed 10% to 14–19% by HMA tier; ferronickel 2% → 4–6%; nickel matte 2% → 3.5–5.5%; NPI 5% → 5–7%; copper cathode 2% → 4–7%; tin 3% → 3–10%; gold 3.75–10% → 7–16%; coal up to 13.5% at HBA >USD 90 for >5,200 kcal/kg grades. The regulation is the cornerstone fiscal lever of the Prabowo nickel-downstreaming/hilirisasi 2.0 strategy alongside RKAB-quota tightening that cut national nickel quotas from 272m to 150m tonnes for 2025.

On 24 February 2025 President Prabowo Subianto launched Badan Pengelola Investasi Daya Anagata Nusantara (Danantara), Indonesia's new state investment-management agency, consolidating around USD 900bn–1tn of Indonesian state-owned-enterprise assets — including Pertamina, PLN, Bank Mandiri, BRI, BNI, Telkom, MIND ID, Antam and Inalum — into a single super-holding modelled on Singapore's Temasek. Danantara was created by the Third Amendment to the BUMN Law (Law No. 1 of 2025, enacted 24 February 2025) and Government Regulation No. 10 of 2025 on its organisation and governance, with board appointments formalised by Presidential Regulation No. 30 of 2025. The agency reports directly to the President, bypassing the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises, and is mandated to deploy SOE balance-sheet capacity into Prabowo's 8% growth target via co-investment in mineral downstreaming, refinery and EV-battery build-out, food security, and semiconductor / data-centre infrastructure.

South Korea's National Assembly passed the Special Act on the Expansion of the National Electricity Network (Law No. 20844) on 19 February 2025 as part of the bipartisan "Energy Trifecta Bill," with promulgation on 25 March 2025 and entry into force on 26 September 2025. The act creates an expedited siting, permitting, and compensation framework for trunk transmission-grid construction, consolidating 35 previously separate regulatory approvals into a single streamlined procedure and targeting a >30% reduction in grid-build timelines. It directly addresses the electricity-infrastructure bottleneck constraining semiconductor fab clusters (Yongin, Pyeongtaek, SK Hynix HBM), sovereign AI datacenter build-out, and EV/battery gigafactory load growth — structurally distinct from the K-Chips Act (fiscal incentives) and the Semiconductor Special Act (regulatory framework), as it unblocks the physical power-delivery constraint those programmes depend on.

The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea passed on 27 December 2024 a comprehensive amendment to the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology (산업기술의 유출방지 및 보호에 관한 법률, the "ITA" or "Industrial Technology Protection Act"), effective 22 July 2025. The amendment grants MOTIE direct statutory authority to block or reverse unapproved exports and overseas transactions involving National Core Technologies (NCTs) — including M&As, technology-transfer transactions, and foreign-investment events — without requiring interdepartmental coordination that was necessary under prior enforcement-decree authority. Entities already verified as NCT holders must complete formal registration with MOTIE within six months of the effective date (by approximately 22 January 2026). Punitive damages for wilful NCT infringement are raised from 3x to 5x actual damages, and criminal fines for overseas NCT leakage are raised from KRW 1.5 billion to KRW 6.5 billion.

South Korea's National Assembly enacted the Special Act on National Resource Security (국가자원안보 특별법, Act No. 20114) on 6 February 2024, with the law taking effect on 7 February 2025 alongside its Enforcement Decree (adopted 14 January 2025). The statute is the first horizontal Korean resource-security framework, covering oil, natural gas, coal, hydrogen and government-designated critical minerals. It establishes a four-tier crisis-alert system (관심·주의·경계·심각 / Attention · Caution · Alert · Serious) under a MOTIE-led inter-ministerial committee, authorises emergency-import measures, mandatory stockpile build/release orders, supply-chain disclosure obligations and price-control powers during designated crises, and requires a five-year basic resource-security plan. The Act operationalises through Korea National Oil Corp., Korea Gas Corp. and the post-2024 KORES successor agency (KOMIR), and creates a statutory designation framework for "selected critical materials" (선도사업자) and "core resource-security companies" eligible for fiscal and financial support.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 establishes a comprehensive EU statutory framework for all battery categories (portable, SLI, LMT, EV, industrial), imposing supply-chain due-diligence obligations for cobalt, lithium, nickel, and natural graphite; mandatory recycled-content thresholds; carbon-footprint declarations; a digital battery passport; and ambitious collection and recycling-efficiency targets, with rolling application dates running from February 2024 through August 2036. It repeals Battery Directive 2006/66/EC and applies to every economic operator placing batteries on the EU market, binding every EV, consumer-electronics, and stationary-storage supply chain that relies on DRC cobalt, Australian/Chilean lithium, Indonesian/Philippine nickel, and Chinese/Mozambican graphite.

The Korean National Assembly passed an amendment to the Restriction of Special Taxation Act (조세특례제한법, Act No. 19234) on 30 March 2023, promulgated 31 March 2023 and retroactive to 1 January 2023. The amendment enhanced the investment tax credit (ITC) for "national strategic technology" (국가전략기술) semiconductor facility investment: large companies receive a 15% ITC on qualifying capital expenditure (up from 8% in the December 2022 base version); small and medium enterprises receive 25%. An additional temporary 10% incremental credit applies for annual investment exceeding the prior 3-year average (effective 2023-2025). Internationally termed the "K-Chips Act," the measure directly mirrors the US CHIPS Act's 25% advanced- manufacturing investment tax credit. Principal beneficiaries are Samsung Electronics (Samsung Foundry plus DRAM/NAND capex of KRW 20-30 trillion per year) and SK Hynix (memory fabs at Icheon and Cheongju, HBM expansion). In the same session the National Assembly passed companion legislation on secondary-battery (EV) investment with equivalent credit rates. The Korean government projected annual tax savings for the semiconductor sector of approximately KRW 1-2 trillion.

Framework Law n° 03-22 forming Morocco's Investment Charter, promulgated by Dahir n° 1-22-76 of 14 joumada I 1444 (9 December 2022) and published in Bulletin Officiel n° 7152 (12 December 2022), replaces the 1995 Investment Charter (Law 18-95) — the first major overhaul of Morocco's horizontal investment-incentive regime in nearly 30 years. Operationalised by Decree n° 2.23.1 (Government Council 26 January 2023, BO publication February 2023), the regime layers a "main" support mechanism (CAPEX subsidies up to 30% combining sector-priority, regional/territorial, gender, sustainable and value-chain bonuses) and a "specific" mechanism for strategic projects ≥ MAD 2bn (~USD 200m) covering EV/batteries, semiconductors, green hydrogen, defence and pharmaceuticals — providing the legal foundation for Morocco's emergence as Africa's leading EV-battery and automotive industrial hub.

Indonesia accelerated the implementation of its raw nickel ore export ban, originally scheduled for 2022, to take effect on 1 January 2020. Announced 30 August 2019 by Minister Ignasius Jonan via ESDM Regulation No. 11/2019, the ban prohibits the export of nickel ore with grades below 1.7% Ni (effectively all Indonesian saprolite and limonite ore that previously flowed to Chinese stainless-steel and ferronickel mills) and forces ore to be processed domestically into intermediate products (nickel pig iron, ferronickel, mixed hydroxide precipitate, nickel sulfate). The policy is part of the long-running "hilirisasi" (downstream-isation) strategy and was the trigger for the >$30B wave of Chinese-led nickel- processing investment in Sulawesi (Morowali, Weda Bay) that has since made Indonesia the dominant global nickel producer.