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

Australia's Anti-Dumping Commission issued Anti-Dumping Notice No. 2026/083 (Case 688) on 23 June 2026, making a Preliminary Affirmative Determination (PAD) under s.269TD of the Customs Act 1901 covering certain flat rolled steel products from China and Korea. Alongside a much larger provisional anti-dumping duty, the Commissioner found sufficient grounds for a provisional countervailing (anti-subsidy) duty on Chinese-origin goods, with interim security rates of 3.2% (Baoshan Iron & Steel) to 4.5% (all other/uncooperative exporters), effective on imports entered for home consumption on or after 24 June 2026. The investigation was initiated on 24 October 2025 following an application by BlueScope Steel Limited.

On 19 May 2026, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced a further overhaul of Australia's foreign investment framework under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975. The package introduces a performance target of processing all low-risk applications within 30 days from 1 January 2027, expands the exemption-certificate regime for repeat low-risk investors, and eliminates approval requirements for certain low-risk transaction types. Countervailing measures tighten the framework: enhanced compliance and enforcement powers are added for avoidance and non-compliance, and screening requirements are explicitly increased for sensitive sectors including critical minerals, critical infrastructure, critical technology, sensitive data, and defence-site-proximate assets.

On 17 May 2026, Treasurer Jim Chalmers signed the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers (Disposal of Interests in Northern Minerals Limited) Orders (No. 1) 2026 (F2026N00326), directing six China-linked foreign investors to divest a combined 1,678,895,780 shares in Northern Minerals Limited (ASX: NTU) within 14 days of the Orders commencing on 18 June 2026. The six named investors are: Real International Resources Limited (619.1m shares), Qogir Trading and Service Co. Limited (523.5m), Vastness Investment Group Limited (271.3m), Chuanyou Cong (130.1m), Hong Kong Ying Tak Limited (95.3m), and Zhongxiong Lin (39.7m), together representing approximately 17.6% of NTU's total shares. NTU owns the Browns Range Heavy Rare Earths Project in Western Australia, one of the few ex-China commercial-scale dysprosium and terbium deposits. These orders are the second tranche of Treasurer-forced divestment of Chinese shareholders in NTU, distinct from the AUD 14 million Federal Court penalty imposed on Indian Ocean International Shipping in January 2026 for non-compliance with the June 2024 disposal orders.

Australia's Anti-Dumping Commission (ADC) published a definitive countervailing (anti-subsidy) duty of 4.5% on imports of steel corner/finishing beading and angles from China, effective 8 May 2026, under Case 677. The investigation was initiated 30 May 2025 following an application from domestic manufacturer Rondo Building Services Pty Ltd, covering metallic-coated corner beading and angles up to 0.49mm base metal thickness under HS codes 7216.61.00, 7216.69.00, 7216.91.00, 7216.99.00 and 7308.90.00. A companion definitive anti-dumping duty of 27.8% on the same product from non-cooperative Chinese exporters was imposed under the same case.

Australia's Anti-Dumping Commission issued Anti-Dumping Notice No. 2026/031 (Case 659) in March 2026, making a second Preliminary Affirmative Determination (PAD) on dumped imports of certain strata reinforcing steel bolts from China, amending the securities schedule under Customs Act 1901 s.42 and extending the determination to cover provisional countervailing duties for the first time. The goods — hollow flat-rolled steel bolts (44–48 mm OD, 2.2–2.5 m length) used in underground mining and tunnelling roof-and-rib support — are subject to revised interim security rates pending the Commissioner's final report to the Minister (due 16 April 2026). The applicant is DSI Underground Australia Pty Ltd; the Statement of Essential Facts (SEF 659) was released concurrently.

Australia's National Reconstruction Fund Corporation, the federal government's AUD 15 billion sovereign investment vehicle, made an AUD 20 million (USD 14 million) equity investment in Diraq, a Sydney-based silicon-qubit quantum computing startup spun out of UNSW Sydney. The funding backs research, product development and commercialisation as Diraq works toward a utility-scale quantum computer, and is framed by the NRFC as building sovereign quantum capability and keeping the IP and jobs onshore in Australia.

On 30 January 2026, Justice Perram of the Federal Court of Australia ordered Indian Ocean International Shipping and Service Company Ltd and its sole director Ms Jing Tian to pay a combined AUD 14 million civil penalty (Indian Ocean AUD 10 million; Ms Tian AUD 4 million) for contravening a June 2024 Treasurer disposal order under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 (Cth). The disposal order had directed Indian Ocean to divest its 613.5 million shares in Northern Minerals Limited (ASX: NTU) — operator of the Browns Range heavy-rare-earth dysprosium and terbium project in Western Australia — by September 2024 on national security grounds. Instead, Indian Ocean transferred its NTU shares to Ms Tian in August 2024, who briefly returned then re-received them before Ms Tian transferred all 100 of her Indian Ocean shares to Ms Ning Lyu and resigned as director. The court ruled these transfers constituted a breach of the disposal order. This is the first civil-penalty action brought by an Australian Treasurer under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act since its introduction in 1975, and the first FIRB enforcement penalty outside the residential real estate sector.

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), Australia's AUD 15 billion sovereign industrial-financing vehicle, took a AUD 30.7 million (USD 21.5 million) equity stake in Applied Electric Vehicles (AEV), a Melbourne-based autonomous electric vehicle manufacturer, announced 28 January 2026. The investment is NRFC's first under its Transport priority area and forms more than half of AEV's USD 40 million (~AUD 58 million) Series B round, alongside Barrenjoey, Japan Post Capital, and existing backers Suzuki Motor Corporation and St Baker. Funds will manufacture, commercialise, and scale AEV's "Blanc Robot" autonomous electric vehicle fleet for mining dust-suppression and inter-factory logistics, supporting AEV's existing 113-person workforce and funding up to 25 new skilled roles in Melbourne.

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), Australia's AUD 15 billion sovereign industrial-financing vehicle, took a AUD 75 million preferred-equity cornerstone stake in Gilmour Space Technologies, a Queensland orbital-launch company, announced 20 January 2026. The stake anchors a AUD 217 million capital raise co-led with superannuation fund Hostplus (also AUD 75 million), alongside Future Fund, HESTA, Blackbird, Main Sequence, QIC, Funds SA, NGS Super and Brighter Super, valuing the company at over AUD 1 billion. Proceeds fund development and qualification of Gilmour's Eris orbital launch vehicle, scaling of satellite and rocket manufacturing, and expansion of the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland — Australia's only licensed orbital launch facility.

Australia's government-owned Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) announced on 19 January 2026 an AUD 70 million (approx. USD 47.1 million) equity commitment to the QIC Global Infrastructure Fund II (QGIF II), managed by QIC. The commitment targets decarbonisation of Australia's energy and transport sectors — smart metering, transport decarbonisation, renewable generation and grid infrastructure — and follows an earlier AUD 72 million CEFC commitment to the fund's first vehicle (QGIF I). CEFC states its cumulative lifetime equity commitments across infrastructure funds now exceed AUD 600 million. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-aid intervention (state act 96103 / intervention 152085).

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), Australia's AUD 15 billion sovereign industrial-financing vehicle, took a AUD 20 million preferred-equity stake in Omniscient Neurotechnology, a Sydney-founded clinical connectomics company, announced 16 January 2026. The investment forms part of Omniscient's broader Series D raise (reported at up to AUD 36 million / USD 27.2 million) alongside Australian venture fund OIF Ventures, and is earmarked to commercialise Omniscient's Quicktome AI brain-mapping platform globally and expand its data-science team. NRFC frames the deal as building sovereign AI/medical-technology capability and creating over 40 new skilled jobs in Australia.

Australia's Treasury applied its annual 1 January indexation to the monetary screening thresholds under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975, effective 1 January 2026. Most thresholds move with CPI (the 2026 update reflects roughly a 2.3% rise in the June-quarter CPI), producing country-specific changes where thresholds are set relative to free-trade agreement status or country-specific baselines — Global Trade Alert logged threshold decreases for Chile, New Zealand and the United States and increases for India, Hong Kong and Peru in this cycle. Fixed ($0) national- security, residential-land, media and foreign-government-investor thresholds and the non-indexed agricultural-land thresholds ($15m cumulative general; $50m for Thailand) are unchanged.