Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

Zimbabwe's Ministry of Mines and Mining Development gazetted a formal Mineral Classification and Declaration on 22 May 2026, signed by Minister Dr Polite Kambamura, classifying 14 minerals as "critical" (nickel, cobalt, graphite, copper, REE, chrome, PGMs, manganese, antimony, uranium, ruthenium, tungsten, niobium — plus metallurgical coal as "special critical") and 10 as "strategic" (limestone, potash, phosphorus, iron ore, pyrites, oil, gas, coal, gold, diamonds). The declaration mandates minimum state shareholding through designated Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) in all critical-mineral exploitation operations and prohibits export of listed minerals in raw or unbeneficiated form without a ministerially-approved conditional transitional plan specifying a local beneficiation timeline.

On 20 May 2026 President Prabowo Subianto signed a Government Regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah tentang Tata Kelola Ekspor Komoditas Sumber Daya Alam) establishing PT Danantara Sumber Daya Indonesia (DSI) — a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Danantara sovereign-investment holding company — as the sole legal exporter ("eksportir tunggal") for palm oil (CPO and derivatives), thermal and metallurgical coal, and ferroalloys (ferronickel, nickel pig iron, ferromanganese, ferrochrome), representing approximately USD 65 billion in annual Indonesian export proceeds. A phased implementation architecture applies: a transition period from 1 June through 31 August 2026 during which private exporters continue direct contractual relationships but must route all export documentation through DSI as the mandatory single-window reporting layer; followed by full implementation from 1 September 2026 under which DSI assumes the entire export chain including contract negotiation, buyer relationship, shipment booking, and payment receipt. The stated rationale is to strengthen export-flow oversight, eliminate under-invoicing and transfer-pricing-driven capital flight, and improve DHE-SDA foreign-exchange retention compliance.

Brazil's Secretariat of Foreign Trade (SECEX) opened a formal antidumping investigation via Circular nº 18 (12 March 2026) into imports of machined graphite electrodes (NCM 8545.11.00, diameter ≥ 350 mm) from China and India, following a petition by GrafTech Brasil Participações Ltda (subsidiary of NYSE-listed GrafTech International / EAF). DECOM's preliminary assessment found indicative dumping margins of 54.9% for Chinese-origin and 57.3% for Indian-origin electrodes. The investigation covers assembled and unassembled electrodes used in electric-arc-furnace steelmaking, ferroalloy smelting, and metal-oxide reduction. A definitive antidumping duty of up to five years may result if DECOM confirms material injury and issues a positive final determination.

On 9 December 2025, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and General Administration of Customs jointly issued Announcement No. 79 of 2025, reinstating an export-licence management system for ~300 HS-coded steel products effective 1 January 2026. Exporters must obtain a per-contract licence supported by a manufacturer-issued product quality inspection certificate; licences are issued by MOFCOM (for centrally-administered SOEs) and provincial / sub-provincial commerce departments. The regime is the first reinstatement of Chinese steel-export licensing in 16 years (since 2009) and applies the export-licensing instrument — previously used for critical minerals and dual-use goods — to a non-critical bulk commodity for the first time.

On 19 March 2025 the European Commission adopted the European Steel and Metals Action Plan (COM(2025) 122 final, IP/25/805) — the first standalone sector-specific industrial-policy framework for the EU steel and base-metals industries (~2.6m direct + indirect jobs). The Plan bundles six work strands — affordable energy, trade defence and circularity (including announced replacement of the post-30 Jun 2026 steel safeguard with a "highly effective" successor measure and a melt-and-pour origin requirement), lead-market measures (Steel and Metals Industrial Decarbonisation Bank with a EUR 100bn target and a EUR 1bn pilot auction in 2025, "Made in EU" criteria in public and defence procurement), capacity and investment funding, scrap and critical-input circularity (including CBAM extension to downstream steel and aluminium products by end-2025), and skills / just transition.

China's State Council Tariff Commission published its annual "2022 Tariff Adjustment Plan" (税委会〔2021〕18号) on 13 December 2021, effective 1 January 2022. Within the bundled annual schedule, the commission cancelled the 20% provisional preferential export tariff on ferrochrome (HS 72024100/72024900) that had applied since May 2021, reverting it to the standard 40% export rate — a doubling. Ferrosilicon (HS 72022100/72022900) continued at the 25% rate it had already moved to when its own preferential rate was cancelled in May 2021. Both are framed as measures to restrain export of energy- and emissions-intensive primary ferroalloy products and preserve domestic steelmaking input supply.