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At the Maiden Mining Local Content Summit held in Takoradi on 18 February 2026, Minerals Commission CEO Isaac Tandoh announced the revocation of more than 300 small-scale mining licences held fraudulently or left dormant, alongside a comprehensive regulatory reset covering all segments of Ghana's mining sector. The reform package includes the repeal of L.I. 2462 (which had permitted mining in forest reserves), introduction of a new medium-scale licensing tier, a sliding-scale gold royalty regime designed to increase state capture during high-price periods, and mandatory local-content thresholds across procurement, employment, and equity participation. Surface-mining operations will be required to use fully Ghanaian-owned contractors; underground-mining contracts must carry at least 50% Ghanaian ownership. The reforms structurally affect large-scale operators including Newmont, AngloGold Ashanti, Zijin Mining, and Atlantic Lithium.

Colombia's Ministerio de Minas y Energía filed Proyecto de Ley 282 de 2025 in Congress on 1 October 2025 — the first comprehensive reform of the national Mining Code since Ley 685/2001. The bill replaces the existing extractivist concession model with a state-directed planning framework that designates Strategic Mineral Areas (AME) for copper, lithium, and nickel under direct state control aligned with energy-transition goals. It establishes excluded zones (ZEM) and permitted zones (ZAM), restructures the concession and royalty regime to expand community and ethnic-peoples' participation rights, and redefines minerals as national public-interest assets rather than private-sector concession targets. As of May 2026 the bill was advancing through Senate committee deliberation.

DRC's Cadastre Minier (CAMI) granted KoBold Metals seven exclusive exploration permits covering approximately 1,600 km² in Tanganyika (four permits, Manono territory) and Haut-Lomami (three, Malemba Nkulu territory) provinces, valid for five years. The permits were issued August 27, 2025 following a July 2025 accord de principe between KoBold and the DRC Ministry of Mines; an official handover ceremony was held September 3, 2025, presided by Minister of Mines Louis Watum Kabamba. KoBold Metals — backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman — becomes the first US company to hold formal DRC lithium exploration rights over the Manono deposit, one of the world's largest confirmed hard-rock lithium resources (~400 Mt estimated), placing it in direct strategic competition with Chinese-backed Zijin/La Cominière whose rights over the same deposit are contested in ICSID arbitration by AVZ Minerals.

On 14 May 2025, President Emomali Rahmon signed Law No. 2173 "On Capital and Promotion of Investment Activity," replacing Tajikistan's 2016 Law "On Investments." The law introduces a 15-year stability and grandfathering guarantee shielding investors against adverse changes in tax, customs, and foreign-exchange legislation after capital commitment, codifies fair-and-equitable-treatment and the minimum international standard of treatment for foreign capital, establishes a state Investment Committee under the Government as the authorised inter-ministerial coordination body, creates a government-level Investment Council chaired by the Prime Minister for high-strategic-priority projects, and clarifies that unpublished legal acts (gazette-unpublished government orders, ministerial instructions, regional regulations) are not binding on investors. The law directly strengthens the regulatory foundation for Chinese and other foreign mining-investment vehicles operating in Tajikistan's antimony, silver, gold, and uranium sectors.

On 16 April 2025 (Beijing time), Zijin Mining Group completed a USD 1 billion, 100% acquisition of the Akyem open-pit gold mine in Ghana from Newmont Corporation, following an October 2024 purchase agreement. Akyem produced between 6.4 and 13.1 tonnes of gold per year over 2021–2024. The deal is Zijin's seventh gold-related overseas transaction since 2020, part of a stated strategy to exceed 100 t/yr of mined gold by 2028 and has moved Zijin from 13th to 6th place among global gold producers by output.

On 23 October 2023 Manono Lithium SAS — a joint venture between Zijin Mining's overseas subsidiary Jinxiang Lithium Limited (~55% stake) and the DRC state-owned entity COMINIERE (~35-39%) — secured the exploration licence for the northeast block of the Manono Lithium Project (formerly disputed PR 13359-NE) after Congolese courts returned full title to COMINIERE, which then invited Zijin to jointly develop it. A mining licence was granted in September 2024, and Zijin commissioned initial lithium production at the site in June 2026, targeting approximately 120,000 t/yr LCE in 2026 and up to 270,000–320,000 t/yr at full capacity. Manono NE is now among the world's largest lithium mines under Chinese operational control, deepening China's existing hold over DRC critical-mineral output (CMOC cobalt/copper, CNMC/Sinohydro copper) and establishing the DRC as a top-tier lithium producer inside the Chinese supply-chain sphere.

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.

Angola's Ministry of Transport formalised a 30-year concession to Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR — Trafigura 49.5% / Mota-Engil 49.5% / Vecturis S.A. 1%) for the operation, management and maintenance of the Lobito Corridor — comprising the 1,300 km Benguela Railway from the Port of Lobito to Luau (Angola-DRC border) and the Lobito port mineral terminal. The international tender was won on 4 November 2022; the concession contract was signed on 4 July 2023 at a ceremony attended by the Presidents of Angola, the DRC and Zambia. LAR commenced operations in January 2024. The concession is paired with the trilateral Lobito Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency Agreement (LCTTFA), signed at Lobito Port on 27 January 2023 by the Transport ministers of Angola, the DRC and Zambia, which establishes the cross-border customs/transit framework for the corridor.

Government Resolution No. 172 of 30 April 2021 approved the State Program for the Development of the Geological Sector of the Republic of Tajikistan for 2021–2030, directing the Main Directorate of Geology (GST.TJ) to expand exploration and reserve quantification across the Pamir, Tian Shan, and Kuraminsky belts covering 28 priority critical and strategic minerals. The programme targets a US$2.6 billion investment envelope across 76 sectoral projects in the 2025–2028 implementation tranche, with an explicit mandate to develop domestic processing and refining capacity for lithium, tungsten, nickel, and antimony. Tajikistan holds an estimated 50% of Asian antimony reserves and the Rasht Valley niobium-tantalum belt (major discoveries confirmed by the Tajik Geological Survey in July 2025), making this programme the foundational state instrument for all subsequent TJ critical-minerals FDI inflows and bilateral minerals diplomacy.

On 26 July 2018 the Serbian government agreed to sell a 63% stake in RTB Bor — the state-owned copper mining complex in eastern Serbia — to Zijin Mining Group (HKG:2899) for approximately USD 350 million plus a committed investment of USD 1.26 billion over five years. The transaction closed on 24 September 2018 after Chinese MOFCOM and Serbian government approvals. RTB Bor operates the Bor open-pit copper mine and the Čukaru Peki underground mine. Under Zijin's management, combined annual copper output reached 296,000 tonnes in 2025, making Zijin the second-largest copper producer in Europe after KGHM (Poland). The complex also produces significant gold as a by-product. The acquisition was facilitated by the China-Serbia comprehensive strategic partnership and BRI connectivity framework. The Serbian government accepted Chinese investment at a discount to assessed asset value in exchange for committed capital expenditure in a region with limited Western private-sector appetite for brownfield copper. EU membership negotiations and EU state-aid rules complicated alternative European financing structures. Zijin financed the acquisition through a combination of corporate balance sheet and China Development Bank-syndicated loans. The Čukaru Peki mine, which was not included in the initial RTB Bor asset base, received a separate Zijin investment commitment exceeding USD 800 million.

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.