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

India's Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) initiated anti-dumping investigation No. 6/17/2026-DGTR (SETU Case ID: AD/OI/016/2026) on 22 June 2026 into imports of Cold Rolled Grain Oriented Electrical Steel (CRGO) and Amorphous Metal (AM) originating in or exported from China PR, Japan, Korea RP, and Russia, on application by JSW JFE Electrical Steel Nashik Pvt Ltd (a JV between JSW Steel and Japan's JFE Steel Corporation). The period of investigation (POI) covers 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026; the injury analysis period spans 2022-23 through the POI. CRGO is the magnetic-core input for every power and distribution transformer, and amorphous metal is the next-generation low-loss core alternative; together they constitute grid-critical capital-equipment feedstock for India's electricity-system expansion, making this probe analytically distinct from — and more strategically sensitive than — the CRNO definitive-duty case (Notification 35/2025-Customs (ADD)).

On 26 May 2026 the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, imposed a £1,000,920.59 monetary penalty on Sabre Global Technologies Limited (SGTL), a UK-registered travel-technology firm, for repeated breaches of UK financial sanctions. SGTL continued to provide Russian carrier Ural Airlines access to its Global Distribution System (GDS) service for seven months after Ural Airlines was designated by the UK in May 2022, and during July–August 2022 actively explored routing payments through a US bank account to avoid detection by its UK bank — the conduct that makes this the **first OFSI penalty issued for a circumvention offence**. At £1,000,921 this is also OFSI's **largest financial-sanctions penalty since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine**, surpassing the prior record (HSF £465k).

Premier Li Qiang signed State Council Order No. 839 on 20 May 2026, promulgating the "Regulations for the Implementation of the Mineral Resources Law of the People's Republic of China" (8 chapters, 79 articles), effective 15 June 2026. The Regulations are the primary implementing instrument for the revised Mineral Resources Law and establish a unified governance architecture across the entire mineral value chain — exploration, production, processing, stockpiling, and emergency supply mobilisation — with inter-agency coordination spanning MNR, NDRC, MIIT, the State Grain and Material Reserves Administration, NEA, and the State Administration of Mine Safety. The Regulations introduce a three-layer strategic reserve system (physical stockpiles, production-capacity reserves, and in-ground strategic areas), grant the state authority to directly organise mining and distribution during supply emergencies (Article 59), and explicitly authorise countermeasures against nations that restrict China's access to mineral supply chains (Article 76).

The European Investment Bank signed its first-ever loan to N-ERGIE Aktiengesellschaft on 12 May 2026, a EUR 200 million long-term facility to finance renovation, reinforcement and digitalisation of N-ERGIE Netz GmbH's electricity distribution infrastructure in northern Bavaria, particularly the Nuremberg metropolitan region. The financing covers overhead lines, underground cables, substations, and network control/automation systems, and is intended to accommodate renewable-generation connection and rising electricity demand from electromobility and heat pumps over the 2025-2026 investment programme.

On 19 March 2026 the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, imposed a £390,000 monetary penalty on Apple Distribution International Limited (ADI), the Ireland-incorporated subsidiary of Apple Inc. The penalty relates to two payments totalling approximately £635,000 made in 2022 to Okko LLC, a sanctioned Russian app developer, for App Store revenue. ADI's failure to cancel the payments amounted to conduct in the UK that breached regulation 12 of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which prohibits making funds available to a person owned or controlled by a designated person. The enforcement is notable as the **first use of OFSI's new settlement mechanism** (introduced February 2026), which allows OFSI and a subject of an enforcement action to resolve a civil monetary penalty case via time-bound negotiation. OFSI applied a 35% discount to the £600,000 baseline penalty to reach the £390,000 final figure, reflecting ADI's voluntary self-disclosure (made 4 October 2022) and cooperation.

Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) issued Decreto Supremo N° 002-2026-EM on 5 March 2026, modifying Decreto Supremo N° 017-2018-EM (Reglamento del Mecanismo de Racionamiento de Gas Natural) to establish a binding six-tier priority order for natural gas allocation whenever the rationing mechanism is formally activated during declared energy emergencies. Tiers prioritise residential and regulated commercial consumers at the top, followed by CNG vehicle/public-transport stations, regulated industrial consumers by volume threshold, independent consumers with firm contracts, and interruptible-contract holders at the base. The decree imposes binding obligations on natural-gas producers, pipeline-transport concessionaires, distribution concessionaires, and LNG-plant operators to optimise production and supply during declared emergencies, with Osinergmin empowered to grant temporary regulatory exemptions. The decree was triggered by the 2 March 2026 Megantini district rupture of Transportadora de Gas del Perú's (TGP) main Camisea pipeline, which reduced supply to approximately 9–10% of normal capacity and forced Cálidda (Lima/Callao distributor) to cut gas to 850 industrial users and all thermal power plants.

President Trump signed Executive Order 14387 on 18 February 2026, invoking Section 101 of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to ensure an adequate domestic supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides. The order delegates DPA §101 priority-allocation and contract- direction authority to the Secretary of Agriculture, authorises USDA to direct the production and distribution of these inputs for national-defense purposes, and grants legal immunity to domestic producers acting in compliance with USDA directives. The EO is the first DPA invocation specifically targeting the phosphorus supply chain, reflecting the concentration of global white/yellow phosphorus production in China (~75% share) and the existence of only a single operating US producer.

The Cabinet Secretary for Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs promulgated the Mining (Mineral Royalty Sharing) Regulations, 2026 (Legal Notice No. 3 of 2026) under section 183 of the Mining Act 2016 (No. 12 of 2016), published on 29 January 2026 in the Kenya Law database. The regulations establish the intergovernmental and community architecture for distributing mineral royalties collected under the parent Act: 70% to the national Consolidated Fund, 20% to the relevant County Revenue Fund Account(s), and 10% to a dedicated Community Mineral Royalties Account held in trust for host communities. This is the executive's procedural cure following the September 2025 High Court ruling that voided the 2024 Royalty Collection and Management Regulations (LN 106/2024) for inadequate public participation; LN 3/2026 focuses solely on distribution architecture and is therefore structurally distinct from the collection mechanics of its predecessor.

MPPKVVCL, a Madhya Pradesh state power-distribution utility, issued a tender for smart prepaid electricity meters valued by Global Trade Alert at INR 1,329 crore. The tender embeds a domestic-supplier preference margin under India's Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017, giving a bid-evaluation advantage to Class-I local suppliers in the electricity/electronics-manufacturing procurement category. GTA records the intervention as announced/implemented 9 January 2026.

MPPKVVCL, a Madhya Pradesh state power-distribution utility, issued a tender for smart prepaid electricity meters (advanced metering infrastructure appointment) valued by Global Trade Alert at INR 1,498 crore. The tender embeds a domestic-supplier preference margin under India's Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017, giving a bid-evaluation advantage to Class-I local suppliers in the instruments/electricity-and-gas procurement category. GTA records the intervention as announced/implemented 9 January 2026 — a separate lot from the same utility's companion INR 1,329 crore smart-meter tender filed the same day.

On 31 December 2025 Mexico's Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (SADER) published the Acuerdo setting the Reglas de Operación (operating rules) of the "Fertilizantes para el Bienestar" programme for fiscal year 2026 in the Diario Oficial de la Federación. The programme's budget rises to MXN 18.2 billion for 2026, up from MXN 17.5 billion in 2025 (+4%), and continues direct in-kind fertilizer distribution to small-scale producers of priority staple crops (corn, beans, rice) prioritizing women, Indigenous communities, and producers in the country's most marginalized rural municipalities. Global Trade Alert classifies the programme as carrying both a production-subsidy and a local-content-requirement component, effective 1 January through 31 December 2026.

On 27 December 2025 the Government of the Russian Federation, via an order signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, allocated an additional RUB 5 billion (approx. USD 63.9 million) from the government's reserve fund to subsidise preferential interest rates on investment and short-term loans to agricultural producers and processors of crop products. The order amends the government's August 2025 preferential-lending distribution and brings total federal subsidisation of the 2025 preferential agricultural credit programme to RUB 41.7 billion. The measure preserves the subsidised rate on previously issued loans rather than creating new credit lines, freeing working capital for producers to expand output.

The European Investment Bank announced a EUR 450 million loan on 4 December 2025 to ORES, the Walloon electricity and gas distribution operator, to finance its 2025-2027 network investment programme across five Walloon provinces (Hainaut, Namur, Walloon Brabant, Luxembourg, Liège). Funds cover new substations, overhead-line replacement, underground-cable reinforcement, smart-meter deployment, and network automation to support renewable-generation connection and e-mobility uptake. The loan is drawn down over two years and repaid over a maximum 20-year term at fixed or variable rates; it is EIB's second loan to ORES, following a EUR 550 million financing signed in 2018, bringing cumulative EIB support for Walloon distribution-grid modernisation to EUR 1 billion.

On 3 December 2025 the European Commission adopted the RESourceEU Action Plan (COM(2025) 945 final), a horizontal critical-raw-materials supply-security instrument complementing the 2023 Critical Raw Materials Act. The plan mobilises €3 billion in EU funds within twelve months for priority CRM projects, creates a European Critical Raw Materials Centre operational from 2026 (modelled on Japan's JOGMEC) acting as portfolio manager for diversified supply chains, joint purchasing and stockpiling, and activates the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act (IMERA) "vigilance" and "emergency" modes from May 2026 with mandatory information requests, priority deliveries and coordinated stockpile distribution. A targeted CRMA amendment expands product labelling for permanent-magnet recycling and adds export controls on permanent-magnet and aluminium scrap. Targets a 30-50% reduction by 2029 in single-country dependency for battery, rare-earth and defence raw-material value chains.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) entered into an $11,485,352 settlement with IPI Partners, LLC — a US private-equity data-center fund manager (~$10.5bn AUM) — to resolve 51 apparent violations of the Ukraine-/Russia-Related Sanctions Regulations between July 2018 and June 2022. IPI solicited and accepted two $25 million fund subscriptions in September 2017 and March 2018 from Definition Services, Inc. — a British Virgin Islands entity ultimately owned by Heritage Trust, a Delaware family trust established by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov — and continued processing 18 capital calls, 20 distributions, and 13 management-fee payments for four years after Kerimov's April 2018 SDN designation. OFAC simultaneously issued an unusually direct sectoral warning to the private-equity industry, marking the first major OFAC enforcement against a US PE-fund administrator in the data-center / AI-infrastructure segment and the second Kerimov-linked PE/VC settlement of 2025 (after the June 2025 $216M GVA Capital statutory-maximum penalty).

Spain's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise and the European Investment Fund (EIF) launched "Climate and Infrastructure" on 17 November 2025, a EUR 500 million (~USD 580.7 million) equity-financing instrument funded under the Regional Resilience Fund (part of Spain's Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan / NextGenerationEU). The instrument will be deployed through specialised investment funds making equity investments in SMEs, mid-caps and infrastructure projects active in energy transition (renewable generation, distribution and grid/storage), energy efficiency, sustainable transport, sustainable food service and digital infrastructure. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked equity-stake intervention.

Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) announced the K-Shipbuilding Strategy for Next-Generation Market Dominance on 15 November 2025 at the emergency economy ministerial meeting and exports-and-investment promotion meeting. The strategy deploys KRW 710 billion (~USD 534 million) by 2028 across three policy directions: (1) technology super-gap via autonomous self-navigating vessels, zero-emission ships (LNG/ammonia/hydrogen tri-fuel), and AI-driven design and smart shipbuilding; (2) manufacturing upgrade through smart shipyard investment, robotics distribution, and improved foreign-manpower visa pathways; and (3) legal infrastructure including a new dedicated "Promotion of Industrialization and Technological Innovation of the Next-Generation Shipbuilding Industry" Act. Korea's overarching target is to capture ≥80% of the next-generation shipbuilding market, explicitly in competition with China's state-subsidised fleet expansion.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a final rule (FR Doc. 2025-19858; 90 FR 50858) removing Arrow China Electronics Trading Co., Ltd. from the Entity List under the destination of China and removing six aliases associated with Arrow Electronics (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. (which itself remains listed but with a narrower alias footprint). The End-User Review Committee (ERC) made the decision by unanimous vote on the basis of information received pursuant to 15 CFR §744.16 regarding the relationships of the aliases and the parties' commitments to enhance export-compliance measures. Effective November 10, 2025.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 220 million loan agreement with WEMAG on 12 November 2025 (press release published 9 January 2026) to finance more than one-third of WEMAG Netz GmbH's 2025-2029 electricity distribution grid investment programme in West Mecklenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The financing supports new substations, network reinforcement, and grid automation to accommodate renewable-generation connection, electromobility load growth, and heat-pump adoption, and forms part of WEMAG's wider EUR 1.2 billion grid-investment plan through 2033.

On 30 October 2025, Brazil's National Monetary Council (CMN) approved a resolution regulating the use of up to BRL 4 billion (~USD 746 million) from the National Civil Aviation Fund (Fundo Nacional de Aviação Civil, FNAC) for below-market-rate loans to scheduled air-transport providers. The program comprises six credit lines — covering sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) purchases, aircraft and engine maintenance, aircraft acquisition and advance payment, and logistics infrastructure — at interest rates of 6.5-7.5% per year, with disbursement formalised via a BNDES contract in December 2025. Airlines drawing on the funds must accept counterpart obligations: an accelerated SAF blending trajectory (1 percentage point per year toward a 10% target, ahead of the legal mandate), a 30% increase in regional flights to the Legal Amazon and Northeast versus 2024 levels, and a freeze on shareholder dividend distributions during the loan grace period.

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.

On 6 October 2025, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated 8 Mexican individuals and 12 Mexico-based companies under Executive Order 14059 for supplying fentanyl precursor chemicals and laboratory equipment to the Sinaloa Cartel's "Los Chapitos" faction, led by fugitive brothers Archivaldo Ivan and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar (sons of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera). The network is centred on Sumilab, a chemical and lab-equipment supplier previously sanctioned by OFAC in May 2023, which restructured through affiliated pharmaceutical, laboratory, chemical, cleaning-supply and real-estate front companies to continue operating after the earlier designation. All property and interests in property of the designated persons within US jurisdiction or held by US persons are blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from transacting with them.

The European Investment Bank, the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business, and Endesa SA agreed a EUR 650 million financing package on 29 September 2025 to modernise, digitalise and reinforce Endesa's electricity distribution network across six Spanish autonomous communities during 2025-2027. The package comprises a EUR 500 million loan channelling NextGenerationEU Recovery Plan funds through Spain's Autonomous Resilience Fund (FRA), plus a EUR 150 million EIB own-funds loan representing the first tranche of a EUR 500 million facility already approved by the Bank. Financing covers smart meters, advanced transformers, grid digitalisation software, new substations and underground cabling, with over half the investment targeted at economically disadvantaged regions.

On 18 September 2025, as part of the third phase of France's national AI strategy under the France 2030 programme, the government opened the "Pionniers de l'intelligence artificielle" (Pioneers of AI) call for projects, operated by Bpifrance and the NALU ("Numérique, Algorithmes, Logiciels et Usages") agency program led by Inria. The scheme funds disruptive AI technologies and applications across industrial robotics, healthcare, energy production/distribution and manufacturing through a three-phase funnel: Phase 1 (technical feasibility, EUR 100k-200k over 6-12 months), Phase 2 (demonstrator, EUR 400k-800k over 6-18 months) and Phase 3 (market launch, EUR 3-8M over 1-3 years), with projects re-vetted for technological and economic relevance between phases. Submissions run 11 September 2025 to 9 June 2026 across multiple deadline windows; as of the government's 18 June 2026 update, 51 projects (23 in a first round, 28 in a second) had been selected, including firms such as IMIND (microelectronics), Skipper NDT, Sagacity Health, Lutece Dynamics, HyprView, DeepLife, Phagos and Wintics, alongside multiple Inria-led projects.

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.

NIB, the multilateral development bank owned by the eight Nordic and Baltic member states, signed a EUR 50 million (approx. USD 58.4 million), 10-year loan with Vantaa Energy Ltd (Vantaan Energia Oy) to finance electricity network investments for 2024-2028, including new power lines, substations and smart meters. The financing is expected to raise regional grid capacity by 250-300 MW and connect roughly 12,000 new customers. NIB's below-market development-bank funding cost functions as a state-adjacent subsidy for Finnish grid infrastructure buildout.

Czech Republic's first standalone federal statute on the resilience of critical-infrastructure entities — Act No. 266/2025 Sb., "Zákon o odolnosti subjektů kritické infrastruktury a o změně souvisejících zákonů" (Critical Infrastructure Act). Transposes EU Directive 2022/2557 (CER Directive on the resilience of critical entities) into Czech law and removes critical-infrastructure regulation from the earlier crisis-management law (Zákon č. 240/2000 Sb.) into a dedicated statute. Covers the 11 CER-Directive sectors (energy, transport, banking, financial-market infrastructure, health, drinking water, wastewater, digital infrastructure, public administration, space, food production-processing-distribution) and obligates designated operators of essential services to conduct risk analyses, implement technical/organisational resilience measures, report incidents to sector-competent authorities, and submit to inspection. Published in the Sbírka zákonů on 4 August 2025; in force 19 August 2025; operator information-obligation deadline 1 March 2026.

The UK's state-owned National Wealth Fund (NWF), wholly owned by HM Treasury, made a £50 million (c. $66.4m) equity investment in AMP Clean Energy, backing the Asterion Industrial Partners-owned developer's rollout of "Battery Box" micro-scale battery storage sites connected to local distribution networks near demand centres (homes, schools, hospitals) across England, Scotland and Wales. The deal is intended to strengthen local grid flexibility and support industrial decarbonisation, and is explicitly tied to the government's Clean Power 2030 mission.

On 29 July 2025, the Government of British Columbia signed a CAD 200 (USD 144.9) million contribution agreement with Haisla Nation to fund the electrification infrastructure needed to run the Cedar LNG export terminal near Kitimat on clean B.C. grid power rather than on-site natural gas. The funding covers a new 287-kilovolt transmission line, a new substation, new distribution lines, and nearshore electrification, and adds to CAD 200 million in federal support for the facility announced earlier in 2025. Cedar LNG is a floating LNG terminal jointly owned by Haisla Nation and Pembina Pipeline Corporation, scheduled to begin operations in late 2028.

NICDIT Zaheerabad Industrial Smart City Limited (NICZISCL) — the special-purpose vehicle developing the Zaheerabad Industrial Smart City node of the Hyderabad-Nagpur Industrial Corridor in Telangana — published a tender for infrastructure works valued by Global Trade Alert at INR 1,206 crore (~USD 145m). The tender embeds a domestic-supplier bid-evaluation preference under India's Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017, across civil-engineering, general-construction, and water-distribution categories. GTA records the intervention as announced/implemented 28 July 2025.

On 22 June 2025, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered an immediate and complete halt of all fuel and gas imports from Thailand, effective from midnight that night (00:00, 23 June 2025). The order came amid a rapidly escalating Cambodia-Thailand border dispute following the killing of a Cambodian soldier in a disputed border area the previous month, and followed Cambodia's closure of two land border checkpoints with Thailand the same day. Thailand exported an estimated 2.3 billion litres of fuel to Cambodia in 2024 — about 20% of Thailand's total fuel exports, worth roughly THB 48 billion (USD 1.5 billion) — making Cambodia one of the largest overseas markets for Thai state energy company PTT. Hun Manet stated Cambodian fuel importers have adequate capacity to source supply from alternative countries, and separately ordered strict legal penalties, including licence revocation, against any company found smuggling Thai-origin fuel into Cambodia.

On 13 May 2025, Vietnam Development Bank's Transaction Office I (Sở Giao dịch I) signed a state investment credit contract for VND 317.2 billion (~USD 12.7 million) with Xuân Mai - Hà Nội Clean Water Transmission Company, a member of AquaOne Group. The loan covers roughly 40% of Phase 1A investment in the Xuân Mai water transmission pipeline and pump-station system, which will supply up to 300,000 m3/day to southwestern Hanoi (Hà Đông district and surrounding rural communes). VDB signed a parallel VND 523.9 billion loan the same day for the Hòa Bình 500kV transformer station project.

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.

On 30 April 2025, the European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a long-term credit facility of up to EUR 450 million with EWE AG, one of Germany's leading regional energy and infrastructure companies, to finance the renovation, reinforcement and extension of medium- and low-voltage electricity distribution infrastructure in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen). The facility is the largest EIB loan EWE has received and supports a total investment programme of more than EUR 700 million between 2025 and 2028, covering over 2,600 km of new underground power lines and more than 1,100 new or modernised substations. Global Trade Alert logs the financing as a "red" state-loan intervention on the grounds that EIB funding to a regional grid operator constitutes below-market state-linked support.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding 18 persons to the Unverified List (UVL) and removing 5. Of the 18 additions, 5 are under China, 6 under Finland, 3 under Türkiye, 2 under Kazakhstan, 1 under Italy, and 1 under the United Kingdom — a geographic distribution dominated by Russia-adjacent diversion corridors. UVL placement does not impose a license-denial presumption (unlike the Entity List) but suspends use of EAR license exceptions for shipments to listed parties and requires US exporters to obtain a UVL Statement before exporting any item subject to the EAR. The rule was published and effective the same day, 25 April 2025 (90 FR 17339).

Indonesia issued Government Regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah) No. 8 of 2025 on Foreign-Exchange Proceeds from Natural-Resource Exports (DHE SDA), amending PP No. 36/2023. President Prabowo Subianto announced the policy at Merdeka Palace on 17–18 February 2025 and the regulation takes effect on 1 March 2025. It mandates that exporters of non-oil- and-gas mining, plantation, forestry, and fisheries products with export-proceeds value of USD 250,000 or more per shipment retain 100 percent of those foreign-exchange proceeds inside Indonesia's financial system for 12 months — sharply up from the prior 30 percent for 3 months under PP 36/2023. Oil-and-gas exporters remain on the earlier 30 percent / 3-month regime. Permitted in-period uses include rupiah conversion at the holding bank, payment of state obligations in foreign currency, dividend distribution, payment for imported raw materials and capital goods unavailable domestically, and servicing of foreign-currency capital-expenditure loans. Non-compliance carries administrative sanctions including suspension of export services. The government has projected the measure could lift retained foreign- exchange proceeds by USD 80 billion in 2025 and over USD 100 billion on a full 12-month basis.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published in the Federal Register (89 FR 84472–84474, FR Doc 2024-24524) three general licenses issued under the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations (31 CFR Part 588): GL 3A, GL 4, and GL 5. All three were originally issued on 18 June 2024 concurrent with OFAC's expansion of Republika Srpska / Dodik-network designations; the 23 October 2024 Federal Register notice formalises them per the Administrative Procedure Act notice requirements. GL 3A (which superseded GL 3 of 16 November 2023) authorises transactions involving certain WBSR-blocked entities that are ordinarily incident and necessary to the exportation or re-exportation of agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices, replacement parts and components, software updates, or activities involving medical prevention, diagnosis, treatment, or clinical trials. GL 4 authorises wind-down transactions with entities blocked on 18 June 2024 through a defined cutoff. GL 5 authorises transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to the manufacture, distribution, operation, installation, or maintenance/repair of drinking-water pumps manufactured or distributed by the WBSR-blocked Bosnian Serb entity Kaldera Company EL PGP d.o.o. (and 50%-or-more-owned subsidiaries), preserving municipal water supply continuity.

Bahrain's Ministry of Industry and Commerce issued Decision No. 53 of 2024, amending the conditions governing foreign ownership in commercial activities, effective 18 October 2024. The reform permits 100% foreign ownership of commercial enterprises — including wholesale and retail trade and authorized distribution — without a mandatory Bahraini local partner, where the foreign company operates in at least 10 countries or generates annual revenue above EUR 750 million. It simultaneously reduces the minimum capital requirement for foreign-owned companies in Bahrain by 95%, from BHD 2,000,000 (~EUR 5m) to BHD 100,000 (~EUR 240,000), materially expanding the addressable foreign-investor pool to mid-market commercial enterprises.

Directive (EU) 2024/1760, adopted 13 June 2024 and entering into force 25 July 2024, imposes binding human-rights and environmental due-diligence obligations on large in-scope EU and non-EU companies across their chains of activities (upstream supply chain, own operations, and a limited part of downstream distribution). In-scope companies must identify, prevent, mitigate, and bring to an end actual and potential adverse human-rights and environmental impacts — covering forced labour, child labour, hazardous chemicals, and biodiversity loss — with obligations phased in from FY 2027 (EU companies with >5 000 employees and >EUR 1.5 bn turnover) through FY 2029 (>1 000 employees and >EUR 450 m). Companies must also adopt a climate transition plan compatible with the Paris Agreement 1.5 °C pathway (Art 22), and face civil liability for damages in national courts (Art 29); the original transposition deadline of 26 July 2026 was postponed and scope narrowed by the EU Omnibus I package (Directive 2026/470).

Mongolia's State Great Khural adopted Resolution No. 62 on 5 June 2024, mandating the government to implement sixteen specific reforms following a parliamentary audit of the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority of Mongolia (MRPAM)'s performance in issuing special permits, collecting royalties, and enforcing taxes over the 2018-2023 period. The audit identified approximately MNT 1.1 trillion in uncollected mineral-extraction royalties and systemic weaknesses in licence management, illegal-mining enforcement, and strategic-deposit benefit distribution. The resolution directs the government to review and amend the Minerals Law, Strategic Deposits Law, and Oyu Tolgoi Investment Agreement frameworks by spring 2025, reform royalty calculation methodologies, and ensure strategic mineral revenues flow equitably to Mongolian citizens. Resolution 62 is the foundational parliamentary mandate driving Mongolia's 2024-25 minerals-regime reform cycle, providing the upstream political basis for subsequently enacted instruments including the Critical Minerals Support Law (January 2025), the Erdenes Critical Minerals SOE renaming (February 2025), and the Mining Product Exchange royalty-pricing shift (October 2025).

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), enacted as Division H of P.L. 118-50 (21st Century Peace through Strength Act), prohibits app stores and internet hosting services from distributing, maintaining, or updating "foreign adversary controlled applications" — defined explicitly to include ByteDance Ltd and its subsidiaries (TikTok). ByteDance was given 270 days from enactment (until January 19, 2025) to execute a "qualified divestiture" — selling TikTok to an owner with no operational relationship with a foreign adversary — or face a nationwide distribution ban. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law's constitutionality in TikTok, Inc. v. Garland (January 17, 2025), rejecting First Amendment challenges and affirming the national-security rationale grounded in data-collection concerns.

Belgium's Loi du 29 février 2024 (published in the Moniteur Belge on 27 May 2024, entering into force 1 June 2026) establishes the first comprehensive federal authorisation and traceability regime for pharmaceutical raw materials used by pharmacists in extemporaneous and magistral preparations. Manufacturers, importers, and distributors of covered materials must obtain AFMPS authorisation and comply with Good Manufacturing Practice and Good Distribution Practice standards; pharmacists may only source materials from authorised actors. The statute was enacted during Belgium's EU Council Presidency (H1 2024) and directly parallels the EU Critical Medicines Alliance architecture launched in Leuven on 24 April 2024, positioning Belgium as the first EU member state to operationalise a national supply-chain control layer for pharmaceutical compounding raw materials ahead of the forthcoming EU Critical Medicines Act.

BIS published a CFR correction to the Entity List (15 CFR Part 744, Supplement No. 4) fixing the entry for Kaliningradnefteprodukt OOO, a Russian petroleum products distributor based in Kaliningrad originally designated in February 2018 under Executive Order 13662 for operating in Russia's energy sector and being controlled by a sanctioned person. The correction updates the entity's name spelling and address details; the underlying license requirement (all EAR items for use in §746.5 Russian industry sector projects, presumption of denial) remains unchanged.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security added 14 entities across Russia, Germany, and Switzerland to the Entity List under 15 CFR Part 744, effective March 4, 2021. Ten Russian entities — including the 27th Scientific Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense (associated with Russia's chemical weapons activities) and nine members of the Chimmed Group distribution network (Chimmed Group, Femteco, Interlab, LabInvest, OOO Analit Products, OOO Intertech Instruments, Pharmcontract GC, Rau Farm, Regionsnab) — were listed for proliferation activities supporting Russia's WMD programs. Three German entities (Chimconnect GmbH, Pharmcontract GmbH, Riol-Chemie) and one Swiss entity (Chimconnect AG) were simultaneously listed as foreign-front nodes in the same procurement network. A license is required for all EAR-subject items; no license exceptions apply. The rule also corrects six pre-existing entries (one Germany, five China).