Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2674 actions· ✨ 91 recent

Statutory Instrument 213 of 2022, gazetted 16 December 2022 by Zimbabwe's Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, banned the export of lithium-bearing ores and unbeneficiated lithium except with the written permission of the Minister. The stated rationale was to force in-country beneficiation and curb revenue lost to illegal mining and smuggling of raw ore. Refined/beneficiated lithium concentrate exports were not covered and continued under the pre-existing regime. This is the foundational instrument that Zimbabwe's later lithium-export architecture (SI 57 of 2023, the February 2026 all-raw-mineral suspension) built on top of.

On 8 December 2022 the Thai Board of Investment issued Announcement No. 8/2565 "Policies and Criteria for Investment Promotion", setting Thailand's five-year (2023-2027) horizontal investment-promotion strategy. The Announcement entered into force from 8:30 a.m. on 3 January 2023 and applies to all investment-promotion applications filed with the BOI from that date. The strategy reorients Thailand's investment regime around three core concepts — (i) innovation, technology and creativity, (ii) competitiveness and rapid adaptability, and (iii) inclusiveness, including environmental and social sustainability — and is operationalised through seven pillars: industrial transition to BCG (Bio-Circular-Green) / smart industries, regional-hub positioning (EV, electronics, food, medical, aviation, automation), supply-chain strengthening, technology upgrading, SME competitiveness, sustainable development, and BCG-economy alignment. Incentives are structured into Group A (corporate-income-tax exemption for 3-13 years, with Group A1+ activities — frontier-technology semiconductors, advanced biotech, certain EV components — receiving up to 10-13 years CIT exemption with no cap) and Group B (non-tax incentives only). Fundamental eligibility criteria carried over from prior regimes: minimum THB 1 million investment, new-machinery requirement, 20% annual revenue-growth projection, and a 3:1 debt-to-equity threshold. The 8 December 2022 release was accompanied by 16 additional implementing announcements (Announcements 9/2565 to 24/2565) covering specific activity lists and merit-based incentives. This is the umbrella framework under which Thailand's subsequent sector-specific BOI instruments operate — the EV 3.5 package (2023-12-19, effective 2024-01-01), the EV Board HEV manufacturing excise incentives (2024-07-26), and the National Semiconductor and Advanced Electronics Industry Strategy (2026-01-07) all sit inside this 2023-2027 investment-promotion regime.

Law No. 162 of 2022, approved by the Egyptian House of Representatives on 18 October 2022 and ratified by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi at the end of October 2022, establishes (i) the Supreme Council for the Automotive Industry — chaired by the Prime Minister with Ministers of Industry (Deputy Chair), Planning, Finance, Transport, and State for Military Production, plus four nominated experts — as the inter-ministerial policy body for localising vehicle manufacturing, and (ii) the Environment-Friendly Automotive Industry Financing Fund as a dedicated public-finance vehicle for EV/PHEV/CNG production support. The Supreme Council held its first meeting under PM Mostafa Madbouly on 15 February 2023. The framework was operationalised via the National Automotive Industry Development Programme (AIDP), launched at IATF 2023 (Cairo, 9–15 November 2023). AIDP grants tiered incentives keyed to local value-add, annual production volume, new investment value, and emissions performance, targeting ~400,000 vehicles/year by 2030 with a step-up of mandatory local content from ~45% to 60% by 2030. This is the first Egypt and first North-African automotive industrial-policy action in the IPTM register.