Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 7 October 2025 the Board (Collegium) of the Eurasian Economic Commission adopted Decision No. 89, setting 2026 tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for beef, pork, poultry and whey imports into the EAEU customs territory and their distribution among the five member states. Kyrgyzstan's national duty-free quota for frozen chicken cuts (halves/quarters/leg portions) was cut from 58,000 to 48,000 tonnes for 2026 -- a 17.2% reduction -- while Kazakhstan's and Russia's chicken-cut allocations (128,000t and 250,000t respectively) and other member states' beef/pork lines were left unchanged or increased. Imports above the reduced quota face the EAEU's higher out-of-quota duty rate. The decision entered into force 9 November 2025, 30 days after official publication, and governs the calendar-year 2026 quota period.

Government Resolution No. 1535 of 3 October 2025 introduced a temporary export customs duty of 10% of customs value on oil (oilseed) flax exported from Russia beyond the Eurasian Economic Union, entering into force 12 October 2025 and running through 31 August 2026. The duty was previously zero. The government's stated rationale is to stimulate utilisation of domestic flax-processing capacity and rebalance the domestic market against raw-material exports; the same package established regional export quotas for corn. Global Trade Alert records Belgium, China, and Czechia as the export destinations most exposed to the higher raw-material cost.

Singapore issued a package of four companion instruments in 2025 to modernise its strategic-goods control architecture: (i) the Strategic Goods (Control) Order 2025 (SGCO 2025), which revokes and replaces SGCO 2024 (S 641/2024) and expands the Singapore Strategic Goods Control List to align with the 2024 Wassenaar Arrangement Munitions List and 2024 EU List of Dual-Use Items, effective 1 December 2025; (ii) the Strategic Goods (Control) (Brokering) (Amendment) Order 2025 (S 662/2025), published 1 October 2025, updating Singapore's extraterritorial brokering regime for controlled goods; (iii) Singapore Customs Circular 01/2025 of 8 April 2025, amending import/export declaration requirements to mandate disclosure of the final destination country of goods rather than the consignee address on the commercial invoice; and (iv) a 4 April 2025 joint MTI–Singapore Customs advisory explicitly warning Singapore-based businesses and intermediaries that their compliance obligations extend beyond Singapore's own controls — i.e., that Singapore authorities will not condone deliberate circumvention or violation of US, EU, or Japanese export controls by Singapore-domiciled intermediaries. This package constitutes the first Singapore export-control-architecture filing in the IPTM register and is directly framed by the February 2025 Singapore–NVIDIA–Inspur–DeepSeek GPU-diversion case in which three Singapore residents were charged for fraudulent re-export of restricted AI accelerators to PRC end-users.

Loi n° 2025-16 du 27 septembre 2025 portant Code des Investissements, published in Journal Officiel du Sénégal n° 7853 du 2 octobre 2025, is the first major horizontal recodification of Senegal's investment framework in 21 years, fully repealing and replacing the Loi n° 2004-06 du 6 février 2004 portant Code des Investissements. Enacted under the Faye-Sonko administration as part of the September 2025 modernisation package (companion to the parallel General Tax Code recodification), the law introduces a digital single-window with a 10-business-day processing guarantee, territorial fiscal and customs stability regimes differentiated by region (3 years for Dakar/Thiès, 5 years for other regions), expanded eligible-sector coverage, and statutory local-content integration mandates to strengthen SME participation. Existing investor protections — national treatment, free capital transfer, and nationalisation/expropriation guarantees — are maintained and modernised. The law structurally aligns the investment framework with Vision Sénégal 2050 sustainable-development requirements.

China's Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, General Administration of Customs, and State Administration for Market Regulation jointly issued Announcement No. 54 of 2025 on 26 September 2025, imposing export licence management on pure electric passenger vehicles (HS 8703801090, motor vehicles equipped solely with an electric drive motor and bearing a VIN), effective 1 January 2026. Only vehicle manufacturers and their authorised distributors may apply, and only for their own-brand output; eligibility criteria require Category I exporters to maintain more than 50 overseas after-sales service and maintenance outlets, a minimum 20% spare-parts inventory rate, and a maximum 48-hour maintenance response time in major export markets. The measure is framed by Beijing as shifting the NEV export sector "from scale expansion to quality first" and curbing non-compliant, low-accountability export practices.

Presidential Decree (Cumhurbaşkanı Kararı) No. 10436, published in the Resmi Gazete on 22 September 2025, amends Türkiye's Import Regime Decision and the Additional Customs Duty Decision to standardise additional customs duty on passenger-vehicle imports (HS 8703) from all countries other than the ~24 FTA/customs-union partners (EU member states, South Korea, UK, Qatar and others). Rates are set at 25% or a minimum of USD 6,000/unit for conventional and non-plug-in hybrid vehicles, 30% or a minimum of USD 7,000/unit for plug-in hybrids, and 30% or a minimum of USD 8,500/unit for battery-electric vehicles. The decree enters into force 60 days after publication (21 November 2025), with a 30-day transition window in which declarations registered under the prior (lower or absent) duty regime are grandfathered.

Türkiye's Ministry of Trade published Tebliğ No. 2025/9 ("İthalatta Gözetim Uygulanmasına İlişkin Tebliğ") in the Official Gazette on 19 September 2025, entering into force 19 October 2025 (30 days after publication). It imposes a forward-looking import surveillance regime on new pneumatic rubber tyres and inner tubes across 15 GTİP lines under headings 4011 (passenger, truck/bus, motorcycle, bicycle and agricultural/forestry tyres) and 4013 (inner tubes), with per-line CIF unit-value reference floors ranging from USD 3/kg (bicycle tyres) to USD 6/kg (steel-braced radial and motorcycle-tube lines). Imports declared below the applicable threshold may only clear customs with a surveillance certificate ("gözetim belgesi") issued by the Ministry's Import Directorate General.

India's DGFT issued Notification No. 30/2025-26 on 18 September 2025, inserting a new import policy condition under Chapter 29 of ITC (HS) 2022, Schedule-I (Import Policy) for ATS-8 — (4R-Cis)-1,1-Dimethylethyl-6- cyanomethyl-2,2-dimethyl-1,3-dioxane-4-acetate (HS 2932.99), the key synthesis intermediate for Atorvastatin, a National List of Essential Medicines cholesterol-lowering statin API. Imports with a declared CIF value below USD 111/kg are reclassified from "Free" to "Restricted," requiring a DGFT import authorisation before Customs clearance. The measure took immediate effect and runs until 30 September 2026. Global Trade Alert records China, Argentina and Canada among the affected exporters; global merchant-market ATS-8 supply is concentrated among Chinese producers.

Qatar's Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) issued Circular No. (3) of 2025, barring car dealerships, showrooms and other commercial exporters from re-exporting new vehicles that have not completed at least one year of domestic registration. The measure targets re-export arbitrage by dealers that was reducing new-car availability and pushing up prices in the local market; authorised dealers and vehicles bought for personal use are exempt. MoCI subsequently adopted, in coordination with the General Authority of Customs (GAC), an executive mechanism clarifying that vehicles imported from a country other than the manufacturing country (and therefore outside Qatar's manufacturer-allocation quota) may still be re-exported.

SARS inserted rebate item 460.06/1516.20.90/01.08 into Part 2 of Schedule No. 4 to the Customs and Excise Act, 1964 (Government Gazette 53334, Notice R.6597, 12 September 2025), giving effect to ITAC Report No. 739. The item creates a temporary full duty rebate — palm oil currently attracts a 10% general import duty — on palm oil (not fractionated, partly or wholly hydrogenated, refined but not further prepared) used to manufacture soaps and organic surface-active products (HS 3401.1). ITAC found palm oil cannot be grown anywhere within the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) for climatic reasons and that domestically available soft oils (sunflower, soybean) are not a viable substitute without costly reformulation, so it recommended waiving the duty on the applicant's behalf. Applicant: Unilever South Africa.

On 2025-09-10 the Russian government adopted Resolution No. 1396, amending Resolution No. 2240 (2022-12-07), which raised import customs duty rates on selected goods from "unfriendly states." The duty on malt beer (HS 2203) rose from EUR 1.0/litre to EUR 1.5/litre and on cider and similar sparkling/still beverages (HS 2206) from 22.5% to 30% of customs value. The resolution also set new duty rates on automotive semi-trailers (HS 8716) of 35% of customs value for units exceeding 15 tonnes gross weight and at least 13.6 m in length, and 20% for refrigerated semi-trailers with cargo volume of at least 76 m³; Hungary and Slovakia were excluded from the "unfriendly state" designation for these lines. The measure entered into force on 2025-09-20, seven days after official publication, and was set to run through 2025-12-31 (subsequently extended to 2027-12-31 by a later resolution).

Paraguay promulgated Ley Nº 7548/2025 on 8 September 2025, establishing a modernised fiscal-incentive regime for national and foreign investment that replaces the 35-year-old Ley 60/90 framework. The statute extends IDU (dividend-distribution tax) exemptions to domestic investors — equalising treatment with foreign-owned enterprises for the first time — and provides customs-duty and VAT exemptions on capital goods, raw materials, and inputs for qualifying investment projects approved via bi-ministerial resolution by MIC and MEF. The law is the third pillar of Paraguay's September 2025 industrial-policy reset, companion to Ley 7546/2025 (electronics sector strategy) and Ley 7547/2025 (maquila regime overhaul), and anchors the Peña administration's FDI-promotion architecture with explicit fiscal-stability guarantees and tiered regional/sectoral premium support.

On 2025-08-30 the Russian government adopted Resolution No. 1341, amending the standing "unfriendly states" import-duty schedule (Resolution No. 2240 of 2022-12-07) to raise customs duty rates on selected oils, fats and bottled drinking water originating from states Russia designates as "unfriendly." Coconut oil and palm kernel oil rose to 25% of customs value (palm kernel oil subject to a EUR 0.56/kg floor); margarine rose from 15% (min EUR 0.12/kg) to 25% (min EUR 0.90/kg); non-carbonated natural mineral water rose to 20% of customs value (EUR 0.11-0.18/litre floor depending on packaging). The resolution entered into force on 2025-09-09.

Argentina's Ministry of Economy issued Resolution 1271/2025 (Boletín Oficial, 28 August 2025) approving Galán Litio SA's ("Galán," the local vehicle of ASX-listed Galán Lithium, 100%-owned) adhesion to the Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones (RIGI) under Law 27.742 for its Hombre Muerto Oeste (HMW) lithium brine project in Catamarca province. The resolution locks in RIGI's 30-year tax, customs and FX stability package — including duty-free import of qualifying capital goods, reduced corporate tax and phased FX-repatriation access — for a declared investment of USD 380 million, targeting 12,000 tonnes/year of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) capacity. Galán must complete 40% of the minimum qualifying investment within two years, with the full commitment due by 31 December 2029. This is one of several lithium projects approved under RIGI following Rio Tinto's Rincón plant, extending the regime's use as Argentina's primary vehicle for attracting foreign capital into its lithium triangle output alongside prior copper (Los Azules) and lithium approvals.

Argentina's Ministry of Economy issued Resolución 1254/2025 (Boletín Oficial, 27 August 2025) approving the adhesion of Generación Eléctrica Argentina Renovable I SA's dedicated branch ("GEAR I SDE") to the Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones (RIGI) under Law 27.742, for the 180 MW "P.E. Olavarría" wind farm in Olavarría, Buenos Aires province. The declared total investment is USD 275.59 million (USD 255.11 million in computable assets), granting the project RIGI's 30-year tax, customs and FX-stability package. GEAR I SDE's accession dates to 25 July 2025; it must reach 40% of the minimum qualifying investment within two years and complete the minimum by 30 November 2027. The plant is designed to supply ArcelorMittal Acindar's Argentine steel plants directly rather than to export power, substituting an estimated 20% of national electricity consumption equivalent for the offtaker and qualifying for import-tariff relief on capital goods under Law 27.742 Article 190.

On 27 August 2025 the Royal Government of Cambodia issued Sub-Decree No. 161, amending Annex II (List of Categorization of Investment Activities) of Sub-Decree No. 139 of 26 June 2023 — the principal implementing decree of the 2021 Law on Investment (Royal Kram NS/RKM/1021/014). The amendment reclassifies investment activities in the production of electricity generated from renewable energy from Group 2 (medium-technology investment activities) to Group 1 (priority-sector investment activities), the highest-tier category under Cambodia's CDC-administered Qualified Investment Project (QIP) route. Group 1 elevation entitles qualifying RE-generation projects to a nine-year corporate income tax holiday (the maximum under the Annex IV incentive matrix), full customs-duty exemption on imports of construction materials, production equipment, and production inputs, priority-sector premiums, accelerated CDC investment-licence processing, and Special Economic Zone overlays where applicable. The reclassification reflects Cambodia's Cambodia Power Development Master Plan 2022-2040, which targets 70% renewable energy in the national power mix by 2030. Sub-Decree 161 is the foundational KH-issuer post-2021 Investment Law implementing decree for the RE sector, providing the regulatory anchor for project bankability assessments under Cambodia's evolving competitive-auction (post-feed-in-tariff) pricing regime being structured by the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Electricity Authority of Cambodia (EAC). It brings Cambodia into alignment with parallel ASEAN investment-incentive-amendment instruments in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.

India's DGFT issued Notification No. 26/2025-26 on 22 August 2025, amending the import policy condition under Chapter 48 of ITC (HS) 2022, Schedule-I for Virgin Multi-layer Paper Board (VPB, HS codes 48059100, 48059200, 48059300, 48109200 and 48109900). Imports remain "Free" but are now subject to compulsory registration under the Paper Import Monitoring System (PIMS) and a Minimum Import Price (MIP) of INR 67,220 per metric tonne on CIF value; consignments declared below that floor are reclassified as "Restricted" and require a DGFT authorisation before Customs clearance. Global Trade Alert records China, Brazil and Chile among the affected exporters. The measure was originally set to lapse 31 March 2026 but has since been extended twice, most recently to 30 September 2026.

At its 32nd regular session on 10 August 2025, chaired by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al-Sudani, Iraq's Council of Ministers approved two additional customs duties on imports from all countries of origin: a 75% additional duty on the unit measure of imported paper napkins/tissues, and a 30% additional duty on the unit measure of white polystyrene plates and food-storage containers. Both duties run for four years without reduction, with domestic-market monitoring during the application period, and took effect 120 days after issuance (10 December 2025). Global Trade Alert logs China, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye as the principal supplier origins affected, though the measure itself is non-discriminatory (applies to all origins).

Türkiye's Ministry of Trade published İthalatta Gözetim Uygulanmasına İlişkin Tebliğ (No: 2025/4) in Resmî Gazete on 31 July 2025, adding ice-making machines (GTİP 8418.69.00.99.12) to the country's import surveillance mechanism. Imports whose unit customs (CIF) value is below USD 16 per kilogram gross weight require a six-month "gözetim belgesi" (supervision certificate) from the Imports General Directorate before customs clearance; the measure entered into force on 30 August 2025, thirty days after publication. Global Trade Alert logs the intervention as "certainly harmful" and names Belgium, Canada and China among the principal exporters affected. The mechanism does not block imports outright but adds a licensing/documentation step that functions as a de facto minimum-price floor on cheap ice-maker imports, protecting domestic appliance assemblers from underpriced units clearing customs undetected.

Türkiye's Ministry of Trade published İthalatta Gözetim Uygulanmasına İlişkin Tebliğ (No: 2025/3) in Resmî Gazete (Issue 32972) on 31 July 2025, adding sodium gluconate (GTİP 2918.16.00.00.13) to the country's import surveillance mechanism. Imports whose unit customs (CIF) value is at or below USD 1.5 per kilogram gross weight require a six-month "gözetim belgesi" (supervision certificate) from the Imports General Directorate before customs clearance; the measure entered into force on 30 August 2025, thirty days after publication. Global Trade Alert logs the intervention as "certainly harmful" and names China as the principal exporter affected. The mechanism does not block imports outright but adds a licensing/documentation step that functions as a de facto minimum-price floor on cheap sodium gluconate imports. It runs in parallel with a separate Turkish anti-dumping investigation into sodium gluconate from China opened under the Prevention of Unfair Competition in Imports framework (Tebliğ No: 2025/9) around the same period, protecting the domestic producer (Sunar Mısır Entegre Tesisleri) that petitioned for both measures.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14324, "Suspending Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment for All Countries," on 30 July 2025 (published in the Federal Register on 5 August 2025 as FR doc 2025-14897, 90 FR 37775). The order eliminated the Section 321(a)(2)(C) administrative exemption that had allowed shipments valued at $800 or less to enter the United States duty-free, applying the suspension to all countries of origin rather than the China/Hong Kong-only carve-out imposed earlier in 2025. DHS/CBP published a Notice of Implementation on 2 September 2025 (FR doc 2025-16802) modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule so that covered low-value goods must be entered via formal or informal ACE entry types and pay applicable duties; goods shipped through the international postal network were instead made subject to a new flat ad valorem or specific per-item duty rate set by HTSUS annex. The suspension took effect for entries on or after 12:01 a.m. EDT on 29 August 2025. A DHS/CBP rule published 24 June 2026 (FR doc 2026-12670) converted the non-postal suspension from time-limited to indefinite and closed the remaining international-postal-network exemption to formal/ informal entry procedures as well.

Published in the Boletín Oficial on 29 July 2025 and effective the following day, Decreto 513/2025 replaces Annexes I, II, and III of Decreto 557/2023, which govern Argentina's exceptions to the MERCOSUR Common External Tariff (AEC). The decree cuts the extrazone import duty on 27 capital-goods tariff lines — machinery, tools, and industrial equipment previously taxed at 20-35% — to a uniform 12.6%, aiming to lower input costs for domestic manufacturers and encourage technology adoption. Two NCM positions (2934.99.22 and 8450.20.20, covering certain chemical inputs and washing machines) receive a 60-day transitional carve-out preserving the prior tariff treatment for goods already in transit or in customs primary zones at the decree's effective date.

Mexico's tax authority (SAT), acting under SHCP, published the Cuarta Resolución de Modificaciones a las Reglas Generales de Comercio Exterior para 2025 in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 28 July 2025, raising the flat tax rate applied under the simplified customs regime for low-value courier and parcel shipments (goods valued at USD 2,500 or less) from 19% to 33.5%, effective 15 August 2025. The increase applies to shipments from countries without a free trade agreement with Mexico — in practice overwhelmingly China-origin goods — and is aimed at cross-border e-commerce platforms (Shein, Temu, AliExpress) as well as triangulated goods routed through courier channels by other importers including large retailers. The measure is framed by SHCP as combating under-invoicing and non-tariff-preference triangulation via the courier de minimis channel.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1564 of 24 July 2025 is the EU's largest-ever trade countermeasure package: additional customs duties on approximately €93 billion of US-origin goods (Annexes I–XIII) plus an export prohibition on specified EU products to the United States (Annex XIV), adopted under Regulation (EU) No 654/2014 (the EU commercial-policy enforcement regulation) in response to the second Trump administration's Section 232 reinstatement and automobile tariffs. The regulation supersedes and repeals Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/778 and three earlier rebalancing CIRs. Application was suspended from 5 August 2025 following the EU-US trade framework agreement of 27 July 2025; the suspension was extended by a further six months from 4 February 2026. CIR 2025/1564 remains in force as a conditionally-reinstateable rebalancing framework while negotiations continue.

Argentina's Ministry of Economy issued Resolution 1028/2025 (Boletín Oficial No. 35,711, 22 July 2025) approving Sidersa Acería SDE's ("Proyecto Siderúrgico Argentino SIDERSA") adhesion to the Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones (RIGI) under Law 27.742, with the vehicle's accession dated 30 May 2025. The USD 300 million project is an integrated long-steel plant (360,000 tonnes/year of construction-grade iron and steel products, scrap-based) in San Nicolás, Buenos Aires province, and is the first purely industrial (non-mining) project approved under RIGI. The approval grants Sidersa the regime's tax, customs-duty and internal-taxation stability package for capital-goods and input imports over the project's benefit period. The project is billed as Argentina's first new integrated steelworks construction in over 50 years, targeting import substitution in construction-grade steel with an estimated 300 direct and ~3,500 indirect jobs (scrap collection, downstream construction).

At its regular session on 22 July 2025, Iraq's Council of Ministers approved an additional 40% customs duty (on the unit measure of the imported product) on tile and ceramic adhesive materials imported from all countries of origin, running for four years without reduction and taking effect 120 days after issuance (20 November 2025). The same session eliminated import license requirements for motor oils/lubricants of all types and for used vehicle spare parts at all federal border crossings, conditional on compliance with national quality standards (oils) and radiation-clearance certification (used spare parts). Global Trade Alert separately logs China, Austria and Czechia as principal affected trade partners for the duty measure, though it applies on a non-discriminatory, all-origins basis. This is one of a recurring series of Iraqi cabinet tariff-schedule actions in 2025-26 driven by state revenue pressure (see the Iraq fiscal-tariff-reform theme for the wider cluster).

Türkiye's Ministry of Trade published İthalatta Gözetim Uygulanmasına İlişkin Tebliğ (No: 2023/2)'de Değişiklik Yapılmasına Dair Tebliğ in Resmî Gazete on 17 July 2025, doubling the unit customs (CIF) reference value that triggers the country's import-surveillance mechanism for photovoltaic cells not assembled into modules or panels (GTİP 8541.42.00.00.00), from USD 85/kg to USD 170/kg. Imports declared at or below the new threshold require a "gözetim belgesi" (supervision certificate) from the Imports General Directorate before customs clearance. The amendment entered into force sixty days after publication, on 15 September 2025. Global Trade Alert logs the intervention as "certainly harmful" and names China and Cambodia as the principal exporters affected. The measure does not block imports outright but raises the price floor below which a licensing/documentation step is triggered, functioning as a de facto minimum-price barrier against underpriced photovoltaic-cell imports — part of a broader push to protect Türkiye's domestic solar-manufacturing base as it scales toward the National Energy Plan's 52.9 GW installed-solar target.

On 14 July 2025 President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in his capacity as Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, signed four gazette notifications designating IFC Colombo 1 (Private) Limited, Ceylon Real Estate Holdings (Private) Limited, Clothespin Management and Development (Private) Limited, and ICC Port City (Private) Limited as "Primary Businesses of Strategic Importance" inside the Colombo Port City Special Economic Zone, established under the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Act No. 21 of 2021. Cumulatively the four projects represent approximately USD 1.2 billion of inbound FDI commitments, with IFC Colombo 1 (a China Harbour Engineering Company / CHEC Port City Colombo subsidiary) alone committing USD 142.71 million and Ceylon Real Estate Holdings (a Browns Investments PLC subsidiary) committing a real-estate complex on 30,629.92 sqm. The original gazettes granted 35-year exemptions under the Inland Revenue Act (running to 13 July 2060) and ~25-year exemptions under the Value Added Tax Act, Finance Acts (Nos. 11 of 2002 and 5 of 2005), Excise (Special Provisions) Act, Customs Ordinance, Ports and Airports Development Levy Act and Sri Lanka Export Development Act, conditional on each designee executing its land-lease agreement with the Commission within six months of gazette publication.

Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1303 of 23 June 2025, published in the Official Journal on 30 June 2025 and applying from 1 July 2025, amends Regulation (EU) 2021/2278 and replaces the EU's autonomous Common Customs Tariff (CCT) duty-suspension list for agricultural and industrial inputs "not produced in the Union in sufficient quantity." The revision extends or newly grants reduced/zero duty treatment to 79 industrial products across 48 six-digit CN tariff subheadings, while also raising import duties on four specific products: rubber thread and cord (CN 4007.00.00), certain flexible plastic sheets/plates/film (CN 3920.10.89), and fixed vegetable/microbial fats and oils (CN 1515.60.99). The measure is erga omnes (applies to all trading partners, not a bilateral concession).

Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Foreign Trade (GAFT), chaired by Dr. Majed Alkassabi, issued its final affirmative determination on 29 June 2025 imposing definitive anti-dumping duties on longitudinally-welded circular stainless-steel pipes and tubes originating in or exported from the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. Duty rates range from 6.5% to 27.3% depending on exporter, effective 30 June 2025, following an investigation opened 2 May 2024 on a domestic-industry complaint. The measure runs for five years, with the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) directed to collect the duty at the border.

South Africa's ITAC, acting on an application from STI Electrical (Pty) Ltd, recommended increasing the general customs duty on transformer cores with a power handling capacity not exceeding 50,000 KVA (tariff subheading 8504.90, split into new lines 8504.90.10 and 8504.90.90) from 5% to 15% ad valorem — the WTO bound rate. SARS gave effect to the change via a Schedule No. 1 tariff amendment effective 27 June 2025. As a SACU common external tariff, the increase applies across South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia. ITAC found the domestic industry's production and sales volumes had declined over the investigation period and that it was price-uncompetitive against imports, and recommended a three-year review of industry performance post-implementation.

Malaysia's Ministry of Finance gazetted the Customs (Prohibition of Imports) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2025, amending the Customs (Prohibition of Imports) Order 2023 (P.U. (A) 117/2023) issued under subsection 31(1) of the Customs Act 1967. The order imposes an absolute prohibition, effective 31 December 2025, on importing dummy buckles, seat-belt alarm stoppers, seat-belt clip extenders, or any other accessory or device designed to be inserted into a seat-belt buckle to disable or bypass the seat-belt safety reminder and render the mechanism inoperative. The ban applies to all countries of origin without exception; Global Trade Alert lists Belgium, China and Czechia as principally affected exporters of the trade-catalogue category covering these parts.

Regulation (EU) 2025/1227, published 20 June 2025, imposes an additional 50% ad valorem customs duty on top of the standard Common Customs Tariff rate on roughly 101 tariff lines of agricultural products originating in or exported from Russia or Belarus, closing the remaining gap in the agri-tariff regime first opened in 2024. Fertilisers from the two countries face a separate, gradually escalating specific duty — starting around EUR 40-45 per tonne on top of the existing 6.5% ad valorem rate for the 2025-26 period, rising in annual steps to EUR 430 per tonne by 2028. The measure enters into force 1 July 2025 and is explicitly framed by the Council and Parliament as a further squeeze on Russian export revenue used to fund the war against Ukraine, extending the July 2024 agri-tariff regulation (EU) 2024/1392 to cover the products it left out.

The European Commission adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1206 on 19 June 2025, suspending GSP+ tariff preferences on non-fuel ethanol (CN codes 2207 10 and 2207 20, excluding TARIC-coded fuel-use ethanol) imported from Pakistan, effective 21 June 2025 for two years. The measure invokes the safeguard clause (Article 30 of Regulation (EU) No 978/2012) after finding that a surge in duty-free Pakistani ethanol — 27% of all EU non-fuel ethanol imports in 2024 (roughly 215,929 tonnes), priced around 25% below EU producer prices — caused serious injury to the EU bioethanol industry. Reinstated Common Customs Tariff duties are approximately EUR 243/tonne (CN 2207 10) and EUR 129/tonne (CN 2207 20).

DGFT Notification No. 19/2025-26, issued 17 June 2025 under sections 3 and 5 of the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1992 and the Foreign Trade Policy 2023, reclassifies all of Customs Tariff Heading (CTH) 2843 — colloidal precious metals, inorganic or organic compounds of precious metals, and amalgams of precious metals, covering gold, silver, platinum, rhodium and palladium forms (ITC-HS codes including 28431010 colloidal gold, 28431020 colloidal silver, 28432100 silver nitrate, 28433000 gold compounds, 28439011 sodium aurous thiosulphate, 28439012 noble-metal solutions, and 28439020 amalgams) — from "Free" to "Restricted" import status. Importers now require DGFT prior authorisation per consignment; the stated purpose is to close a route for importing gold disguised as chemical compounds. Genuine industrial and manufacturing users (electronics, electrical, and specialised chemical industries) remain able to import against an authorisation, so the measure targets bullion arbitrage rather than input-supply continuity. It was issued the same day as, and as a companion measure to, DGFT Notification No. 18/2025-26 (gold-bearing PGM alloys, CTH 7110), filed separately as 2025-06-17-india-dgft-pgm-alloys-import-licensing.

DGFT Notification No. 18/2025-26, issued 17 June 2025 under the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1992, reclassifies alloys of palladium, rhodium, and iridium containing more than 1% gold by weight (ITC-HS codes 71102100, 71102900, 71103100, 71103900, 71104100, 71104900) from "Free" to "Restricted" import status, requiring DGFT prior authorisation per consignment. Unwrought or powder-form palladium, rhodium, and iridium below the 1% gold threshold remain freely importable. The measure extends an earlier platinum-alloy restriction (Notification No. 60/2024-25, 5 March 2025) to the full Customs Tariff Heading 7110 at the 4-digit level, closing a route for importing gold in disguised alloy form.

South Africa's International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) made a preliminary finding that clear float glass imported from Tanzania was being dumped into the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) market, causing material injury and threat of further injury to the domestic glass industry. Following the investigation (initiated 6 June 2025 and detailed in ITAC Report 762), ITAC requested the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to impose provisional anti-dumping duties on imports classifiable under tariff subheadings 7005.29.17, 7005.29.23, 7005.29.25 and 7005.29.35. SARS implemented the provisional payments on 23 January 2026, running through 22 July 2026 pending a definitive determination; the specific duty rate was not disclosed in ITAC's public release. The measure applies across the entire SACU customs territory (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho).

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1132 of 3 June 2025 reinstated the ~40 tariff-rate quotas on Ukrainian agricultural products (cereals, poultry/eggs, sugar, tomatoes, mushrooms and other lines) established under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement/DCFTA, after the temporary Autonomous Trade Measures regulation (EU) 2024/1392 — which had suspended all such quotas and given Ukraine unlimited duty-free access — expired on 5 June 2025 without renewal. The regulation applied from 6 June 2025, with quota volumes pro-rated at 7/12 of the annual amount to cover the remainder of the year (e.g. 5.83 million kg for preserved tomatoes, 291,667 kg each for two preserved-mushroom lines). Imports above the quota ceilings revert to standard Common Customs Tariff duties.

On 4 June 2025 the Verkhovna Rada adopted Law No. 4473-IX, amending the Customs Code of Ukraine to exempt from import (customs) duty goods brought into Ukraine's customs territory for security and defence needs. The law entered into force on 15 June 2025. Coverage includes optical fibre and fibre-optic cable imported by enterprises for the manufacture or repair of unmanned aerial systems (drones) and other defence equipment, as well as materials supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other authorised defence entities, removing a cost input for Ukraine's wartime domestic drone-manufacturing base. A companion law, No. 4474-IX, grants a parallel VAT exemption for the same import category.

On 4 June 2025 the Verkhovna Rada adopted Law No. 4474-IX, amending subsection 2 of section XX ("Transitional Provisions") of the Tax Code of Ukraine to exempt from value-added tax the import into Ukraine's customs territory of goods for security and defence needs, including optical fibre and fibre-optic cable used in the manufacture and repair of unmanned aerial systems (drones). The law entered into force on 15 June 2025. It is the VAT-side companion to Law No. 4473-IX (filed separately), which grants the equivalent customs-duty exemption for the same import category — the Rada split duty relief and VAT relief into two parallel statutory amendments passed the same day.

As part of the FY2025-2026 national budget, Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue implemented a package of customs duty amendments under the Finance Act 2025, effective 1 July 2025. The changes are mixed-direction: duties were reduced on some product lines and increased on others, spanning forage/fibre products, chemicals and fertilisers, and basic organic chemicals among other categories. This is a routine annual fiscal-cycle tariff schedule revision rather than a targeted trade-restrictive measure against any single trading partner.

Pakistan's Federal Cabinet approved the National Tariff Policy 2025-30 (NTP 2025-30) in June 2025, with operative tariff reforms incorporated into the Finance Act 2025 effective 1 July 2025. The NTP restructures Pakistan's customs duty (CD) slab architecture from five slabs (0/3/11/16/20%) to four flatter slabs (0/5/10/15%) by FY2029-30, while phasing out Regulatory Duties (RDs) and Additional Customs Duties (ACDs) on 7,000+ tariff lines over four to five years. The policy targets cutting the trade-weighted average tariff from ~10.6% to below 6% and the simple-average tariff from 19% to 9.5% by 2030, underpinned by GTAP projections of 10–14% export growth and 5–6% import growth. Prepared in coordination with IMF technical assistance under the USD 7 billion EFF, the NTP is the statutory anchor for the sequence of Finance-Act SRO-based sectoral tariff revisions covering textiles/MMF, iron-and-steel, and chemicals/intermediates through FY2029-30.

Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue gazetted SRO 195-Ain/2025/17/Customs on 29 May 2025, amending an earlier motor-manufacturing SRO (163-Ain/2024) to reduce import duties on additional raw materials and components used in domestic electric motor and electric-motor-parts manufacturing, effective 2 June 2025. The measure lowers input costs for local electric motor producers as part of NBR's ongoing tariff-concession scheme for domestic light-engineering manufacturing.

Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue gazetted SRO 225-Ain/2025/48/Customs and SRO 226-Ain/2025/48/Customs on 29 May 2025, revising the minimum customs valuation (tariff-value) floors used to assess duty on a range of imported consumer and industrial goods, effective 2 June 2025. The amendment raised minimum import values for chocolate and cocoa-containing food preparations, removed the minimum-value floor for base oil used by petroleum processing/blending industries, and adjusted floors — mostly downward — for soap and other cleaning preparations and a handful of additional product lines. Minimum-value schemes set a customs-assessable price floor per unit regardless of the invoiced transaction value, so a higher floor functions as a de facto increase in the duty base (and hence landed cost) for under-invoicing-prone product categories, while a removed or lowered floor eases the duty base for the affected goods.

India's DGFT issued Notification No. 07/2025-26 on 17 May 2025, with immediate effect, restricting the entry points through which Bangladesh goods may be imported into India. All ready-made garments (RMG) from Bangladesh are barred from land ports entirely and may enter only via Nhava Sheva and Kolkata seaports; processed food, rubber and plastic goods, and wooden furniture are barred from Land Customs Stations (LCSs) and Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, and at Changrabandha and Fulbari in West Bengal. The notification is widely read as a retaliatory measure responding to Bangladesh's April 2025 NBR land-port yarn-import ban, and is the first bilateral India-Bangladesh trade-restriction instrument filed in the IPTM register.

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.

India's Directorate General of Foreign Trade issued Notification No. 06/2025-26 on 2 May 2025, inserting new Para 2.20A into the Foreign Trade Policy 2023: direct or indirect import or transit of all goods originating in or exported from Pakistan is prohibited with immediate effect, until further orders, regardless of whether the goods are otherwise freely importable. The government cited national security and public policy grounds; any exception requires prior Government of India approval. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs followed on 3 May 2025 with Instruction No. 07/2025-Customs directing field formations to enforce the ban. The measure followed the 22 April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack and preceded a brief India-Pakistan military exchange in early May 2025.

On 1 May 2025 the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), jointly with FinCEN, designated two Mexican nationals — Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva and J. Refugio Ruiz Villagomez — and nine entities they own or control, pursuant to Executive Order 14059 (illicit drug trade) and E.O. 13224 (as amended), for facilitating a Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) fuel-theft and cross-border smuggling scheme ("huachicol fiscal") that falsifies customs documentation to evade Mexico's IEPS fuel-import tax. FinCEN concurrently issued a supplemental alert on fuel-smuggling and fiscal fuel-theft red flags. All property and interests in property of the designees within US jurisdiction are blocked, and US persons are generally barred from transacting with them.

Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue, acting on a March 2025 Ministry of Commerce directive, issued a notification on 13 April 2025 prohibiting yarn imports through all land-border customs stations, including Benapole, Bhomra, Banglabandha, Burimari, and Sonamasjid. Imports of yarn may continue only through seaports and airports. The stated rationale is systematic under-invoicing of land-port yarn shipments — declared values were found significantly below Chattogram customs-house benchmark prices — which NBR and the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission concluded was severely damaging domestic spinning-mill competitiveness. The restriction is the first BD import-restrictive measure in the IPTM register and triggered India's retaliatory DGFT Notification 07/2025-26 of 17 May 2025 restricting entry of Bangladeshi exports into India.

Sultan Haitham bin Tariq issued Royal Decree 38/2025 on 7 April 2025, published in the Sultanate of Oman Official Gazette on 13 April 2025, enacting a unified statutory framework for Oman's special economic zones (SEZs) and free zones (FZs) under the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ). The law consolidates the previously fragmented regimes governing Duqm SEZ, Salalah Free Zone, Sohar Free Zone, Al Mazunah Free Zone, and Knowledge Oasis Muscat into a single overarching statutory architecture, granting a 10-year corporate income tax exemption (renewable for high-value activities), 100% foreign ownership, full capital and profit repatriation, customs-duty exemptions on construction inputs and operational goods, and a statutory one-stop-shop through OPAZ. The law establishes OPAZ as the consolidated regulatory authority with ring-fenced powers over labour, immigration, customs, environment, and land-use within zone boundaries, and creates a new statutory basis for OPAZ to negotiate sector-specific concessions using usufruct, leasehold, and sub-concession instruments. Royal Decree 38/2025 is the principal Vision 2040 FDI-architecture instrument — the parent statute under which the GFCL Salalah LFP battery-materials usufruct, the Hyport Duqm green-ammonia project, and the Karwa Motors EV-assembly arrangement all operate.