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

The Council of Ministers, chaired by President Andry Rajoelina at its 27–29 January 2026 session, approved the lifting of Madagascar's 16-year moratorium on the issuance of new mining permits. The suspension — originally imposed by Decree No. 2011-074 of 8 February 2011 following the 2009 constitutional crisis — had effectively frozen upstream mine development despite the 2023 Mining Code overhaul (Loi n° 2023-007). Gold permits remain explicitly excluded pending resolution of substantial discrepancies between officially declared production (~13 kg) and artisanal-mining scale. The decision unlocks approximately 1,650 pending permit applications held by the Bureau Central des Mines de Madagascar (BCMM) cadastre, with at least ten large-scale projects in graphite, nickel, cobalt, rare-earths, and iron-ore sectors expected to advance within three months.

Loi n° 2023-007 portant refonte du Code Minier replaces the 2005-021 framework as the comprehensive legal foundation for Madagascar's mining sector. The headline fiscal change raises the ad-valorem mining royalty from 2% to 5%, decomposed as a 2% mining rebate (ristourne minière) earmarked for local communities and a 3% mining royalty (redevance minière) accruing to the State; a 30% reduction applies where extracted products are processed domestically, embedding a value-add incentive into the royalty schedule. The law also introduces a dedicated environmental, health and safety chapter, modernises customs/fiscal/foreign- exchange provisions, tightens permit-issuance procedures and strengthens oversight of small-scale mining. It is the first IPTM entry for Madagascar — a Tier-2 critical-minerals jurisdiction with material cobalt (Ambatovy), graphite (Molo / Green Giant), ilmenite/zircon (QMM Fort-Dauphin) and emerging REE / vanadium / nickel pipelines.