Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

Brazil's Comitê-Executivo de Gestão da Câmara de Comércio Exterior (Gecex/Camex) approved Resolução Gecex Nº 876 on 13 April 2026 (DOU 14/04/2026), applying a definitive five-year antidumping duty on imports of polyethylene (PE) resins — NCM 3901.10.30, 3901.20.29, and 3901.40.00 — originating from the United States and Canada. The DECOM investigation, initiated on 14 November 2024 following a Braskem S.A. petition, found positive dumping margins and material injury to the domestic PE-resin industry; provisional duties were imposed under Resolução Gecex Nº 777 (28 August 2025) for six months. Gecex modulated the definitive rates to match provisional-period levels as a public-interest adjustment to limit additional cost pass-through to downstream packaging, agricultural-film, and container manufacturers.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 1.981 billion (~USD 374 million) financing operation, drawn from the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante, FMM), for Bram Offshore Transportes Marítimos Ltda — a subsidiary of the US-headquartered Edison Chouest Offshore group and Brazil's largest offshore-support vessel operator. The loan funds the newbuild construction, by July 2028, of six diesel-electric hybrid PSV 5000-class support vessels at the Navship shipyard in Navegantes, Santa Catarina, chartered to Petrobras under 12-year contracts. The project is expected to create 620 direct shipyard jobs during construction and 190 direct operational jobs at Bram.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Japan's state export-credit and outbound-investment finance institution, signed a credit line agreement on 2025-11-12 providing USD 360 million of a USD 600 million total facility to Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), Brazil's state-controlled oil company. The credit line, extended under JBIC's GREEN Operations framework, is earmarked to fund decarbonization, energy-transition, and environmental projects implemented by Petrobras or its subsidiaries in Brazil, including alignment with the Initiative for Sustainable Fuel and Mobility (ISFM), a Japan-Brazil biofuels/mobility-technology programme, and Brazil's 2050 net-zero target. The agreement was signed during COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES signed a BRL 2.5 billion (~USD 471.6 million) financing contract with Starnav Serviços Marítimos on 22 September 2025 in Itajaí (Santa Catarina), drawing on the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante, FMM). The loan covers just over 88% of the ~BRL 2.9 billion cost of eight hybrid (diesel-electric with battery banks) multipurpose offshore support vessels — four Platform Supply Vessels (PSV) and four Oil Spill Recovery Vessels (OSRV), each 5,500 dwt — to be built at the Detroit Brasil shipyard in Itajaí. The vessels will be chartered to state oil company Petrobras under 12-year contracts to support offshore oil and gas production, and the project is projected to generate 1,400 direct and 6,300 indirect jobs. The announcement was part of a wider BRL 3.3 billion BNDES package for Santa Catarina covering naval, highway and agroindustry financing.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 186.1 million (~USD 33.6 million) financing operation for Bram Offshore Transportes Marítimos Ltda, part of the US Edison Chouest Offshore group and the largest offshore-support vessel operator in Brazil. The loan, drawn from the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante, FMM), covers 90% of a BRL 206.8 million project to repair, modernise and convert 15 support vessels — including hybrid-propulsion retrofits (battery installation) on at least one Petrobras-chartered vessel — at the Navship shipyard in Navegantes, Santa Catarina. The same BNDES announcement included a separate BRL 53.2 million FMM loan to Estaleiro Navship Ltda to resume pandemic-halted shipyard works at Porto do Açu (São João da Barra, RJ).

On 11 April 2025, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sanctioned without vetoes Lei nº 15.122/2025 ("Lei da Reciprocidade Econômica"), published in the Diário Oficial da União on 14 April 2025 and effective the next business day. The statute — Brazil's first standalone economic-retaliation framework — empowers the Executive to suspend (i) trade concessions on imports of goods and services, (ii) intellectual-property rights and obligations under Lei 12.270/2010, and (iii) concessions or commitments assumed under trade agreements, as countermeasures against unilateral measures by individual countries or economic blocs that negatively impact Brazilian international competitiveness, including environmental requirements stricter than Brazil's own. Decreto nº 12.551 of 14 July 2025 (DOU 15 July 2025) regulates the law, creating the Comitê Interministerial de Negociação e Contramedidas Econômicas e Comerciais (CINCEC), chaired by MDIC with seats for Casa Civil, Fazenda and Itamaraty (Relações Exteriores), and establishes both a fast-track provisional countermeasure procedure (CINCEC-only) and an ordinary track (≥5 months) routed through SE-CAMEX, GECEX, the CAMEX Strategic Council and a 30-day public consultation.

On 2 August 2024, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sanctioned Lei nº 14.948/2024 (with partial veto, Mensagem nº 741) at a ceremony in the Pecém Industrial-Port Complex in Ceará, following Senate and Chamber approval of PL 2308/2023; the law was published in the Diário Oficial da União on 5 August 2024. The statute establishes Brazil's first comprehensive legal framework for low-carbon hydrogen: it (i) creates the National Low-Carbon Hydrogen Policy (PNH2BC) under the National Energy Policy umbrella, (ii) sets a statutory definition of "low-carbon hydrogen" as fuel/industrial input with lifecycle GHG intensity ≤ 7 kg CO₂e/kg H₂, (iii) institutes the Brazilian Hydrogen Certification System (SBCH2) for origin and emissions accreditation, (iv) creates the Special Incentive Regime for Low-Carbon Hydrogen Production (Rehidro), suspending PIS/Pasep and Cofins for five years on capital-goods, raw-materials and services purchases by qualified producers, and (v) authorises the Programa de Desenvolvimento do Hidrogênio de Baixa Emissão de Carbono (PHBC) — a tax-credit envelope capped at BRL 18.3 bn between 2028 and 2032 (subsequently regulated by Lei nº 14.990/2024 sanctioned 30 September 2024). ANP gains regulatory authority over hydrogen transportation, storage and import/export licensing, while the law amends Leis nºs 9.427/1996 (ANEEL) and 9.478/1997 (Petroleum Law) to integrate hydrogen into the energy-policy and electricity-regulation framework. Industry reporting at sanction cited >USD 30 bn in announced project pipeline, concentrated in Northeast renewable-rich states (Ceará, Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte) leveraging Pecém, Suape and Açu as hydrogen-derivative export terminals.

On 22 January 2024, Brazil's National Council for Industrial Development (CNDI), reactivated by President Lula in 2023, launched Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB) — Brazil's first comprehensive national industrial policy since the 2011-2014 Plano Brasil Maior. The framework commits roughly R$300 billion (~USD 60 billion) in financing through 2026, distributed across loans, non-refundable grants and equity participations administered by BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank), Finep (Research and Projects Financing Company) and Embrapii (Brazilian Industrial Research and Innovation Company), with quantitative targets running to 2033. The R$300bn envelope combines R$106bn announced at the first CNDI meeting in July 2023 with R$194bn redirected from existing budget lines. NIB is structured around six "missions": (1) sustainable and digital agro-industrial chains, (2) health-industrial complex resilience (medicines, vaccines, devices), (3) urban infrastructure and green mobility, (4) digital transformation and Industry 4.0 including semiconductors, (5) bioeconomy and energy transition, and (6) defence, sovereignty and national-security technologies. Two presidential decrees signed the same day establish local-content preferences for New PAC public-procurement bids and create an Interministerial Public Procurement Commission. As of February 2025, BNDES had approved R$220bn in NIB-aligned operations, and the plan has anchored downstream sectoral programmes including Brasil Semicon, the Mover automotive programme and Mais Inovação.