Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2680 actions· ✨ 93 recent

UK Export Finance launched the Critical Goods Export Development Guarantee (Critical Goods EDG), a lending-support scheme that offers an 80% government guarantee on commercial finance for UK-based suppliers of critical minerals to UK exporters. Eligible suppliers must produce at least 50% of their critical-mineral goods for UK exporters (lowered to 20% if the firm also earns at least 5% of turnover from overseas sales), and the mineral must appear on the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre's 2024 criticality assessment or the associated growth-minerals list. The scheme targets commercial lending facilities above £25 million and lets suppliers access the guarantee even if they do not export directly, as long as their output feeds into UK exporters' end products.

The Department for Business and Trade, with DSIT, published "Vision 2035: Critical Minerals Strategy" on 22 November 2025 — the UK's first dedicated critical-minerals strategy under the Starmer government, superseding the withdrawn 2022 strategy. DBT commits up to GBP 50 million for new critical mineral projects on top of GBP 165 million in existing support, with the National Wealth Fund providing equity backing (Cornish Lithium GBP 24m in 2023 plus a further GBP 31m commitment in 2025; Cornish Metals GBP 28.6m in 2025; South Crofty Tin GBP 26.8m). Sets 2035 targets of 10% of UK industrial demand from domestic production (extraction + processing + refining), 20% from recycling, and a hard floor of 50,000 tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent produced domestically. Strategy is consciously midstream-and-recycling-tilted rather than upstream-extraction race; pillars are (i) optimise domestic production, (ii) resilient global supply networks via partnerships with US, EU, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan (plus Kazakhstan rhenium/vanadium and continued China engagement), (iii) circular economy / recycling, (iv) responsible supply chains.

The UK Trade Remedies Authority initiated antidumping investigation AD0071 on 6 June 2025 into hot-rolled steel plate (flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel, 600mm+ width, hot-rolled, not clad/plated/coated, not in coils, 4.75mm+ thickness) originating in South Korea, following an application by UK producer Spartan UK Ltd. The TRA found South Korean imports grew from ~14,000 tonnes in 2021 to over 40,000 tonnes the following year. In April 2026 the TRA published its Statement of Essential Facts proposing duties of 7.04%-22.27% on narrow plates (600mm-2500mm width) — its preferred option — or 5.98%-24.28% if applied to the full scope, after an Economic Interest Test found full-scope duties would harm UK downstream sectors (renewable energy, shipbuilding, defence) reliant on wider-plate imports.