Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 89 recent

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.

Decision No. 530 of 2025 of Egypt's Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade renews, for a further one-year period from the expiry of the prior decision, an export duty of EGP 9,000 (~US$189) per metric ton on scrap and waste of stainless-steel alloys (HS 7204.21), implemented via Egyptian Customs Tariff Circular No. 67/2025. Shipments destined for free zones within Egypt are excluded from the duty. The stated rationale is to regulate exports of what the ministry classifies as a strategic input and preserve domestic feedstock supply for Egypt's steel industry.

South African Cabinet on 25 June 2025 approved a three-part package to revitalise the domestic ferrochrome sector: (i) placement of chrome ore under export control via the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) under the International Trade Administration Act 71 of 2002, requiring an export permit prior to dispatch; (ii) initiation of work on a chrome ore export tax (rate not finalised; market reporting cites 25%); (iii) expanded SEZ incentives for ferrochrome smelters and a negotiated electricity- tariff relief mechanism. The DTIC notice formally placing chrome ore under export control was published in Government Gazette No. 53477 General Notice 6712 on 3 October 2025 with a 30-day public-comment window closing 31 October 2025; the final permit regime takes effect upon subsequent ministerial gazette notice. South Africa accounts for >70% of seaborne chrome ore exports, so the regime is globally material to stainless-steel supply chains.

The Gabonese Council of Ministers on 30 May 2025 adopted a decision prohibiting all exports of raw (crude) manganese ore effective 1 January 2029, requiring that all manganese mined in Gabon be processed domestically before export. A Commission has been established to draft the implementing regulation, and the Ministry of Industry and Local Transformation is working with COMILOG (Eramet) on transition modalities including the planned Moanda ferromanganese plant (300 kt/yr capacity). The measure applies to the world's #2 manganese producer (~25% of global reserves; ~8 Mt/yr current output, the bulk via COMILOG-Eramet), forcing upstream beneficiation onto Eramet/COMILOG, CITIC, and Ningbo Steel. The ban is the flagship industrial-policy instrument of the "Gabon Industriel 2035" national strategy under President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema.

Peraturan Menteri Perdagangan Nomor 8 Tahun 2025 (Permendag 8/2025), signed 6 March 2025 and effective 10 March 2025, is the Third Amendment to Indonesia's Export-Prohibited Goods List (Permendag 22/2023), revising prohibited-export categories across seven commodity groups: forestry (wood, bamboo), agriculture (natural rubber, porang, rice, kratom), subsidised fertilisers (nitrogen-containing mineral/chemical fertilisers), mining (tin and minerals subject to general downstream-processing rules), cultural heritage, metal waste/scrap (iron and steel), and marine sedimentation products (sea sand, marine sludge). The regulation introduces a structured hilirisasi force-majeure relaxation pathway allowing companies that have completed construction of domestic mineral refining/smelting facilities — but cannot yet operate due to force majeure — to temporarily export copper concentrate with a minimum 15% Cu content, subject to Ministry of Trade approval. It is the direct predecessor to the Fourth Amendment (Permendag 6/2026, 26 March 2026).

On 6 February 2025 the South African Revenue Service updated its Prohibited and Restricted Imports and Exports list to require an International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) export permit for a broad basket of base-metal tariff headings: 72.04 (excl. 7204.21), 7404.00, 72.05, 72.06, 72.07, 72.18, 72.24 (iron/steel waste, ingots, semi-finished and granules), 74.02, 74.03, 74.05, 74.06 (unrefined/refined copper and copper powders), 76.01, 76.03, 76.04 (unwrought aluminium, powders and bars), 78.01 (unwrought lead), 79.01 (unwrought zinc) and 80.01 (unwrought tin). The same update removed the export-permit requirement from six copper sub-headings (7403.12, 7403.13, 7403.19, 7403.21, 7403.22, 7403.29) and added several machinery tariff headings (8417.10, 8417.80, 8462-series) to the import-permit list.

On 28 July 2023 Japan's government decided a further amendment to the Export Trade Control Order under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act, adding goods that contribute to strengthening Russia's industrial base to the existing export prohibition list. The additional goods include passenger vehicles over 1,900cc displacement (gasoline, diesel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric), stainless-steel drill pipes used in oil and gas drilling, yachts and recreational/sporting vessels, and construction-mineral products (monumental/building stone, gypsum, anhydrite, clays). The measure was gazetted 2 August 2023 and took effect 9 August 2023, aligning Japan's export-control list with equivalent measures other G7 members had already adopted.

MOTIE finalised the 31st amendment of the Public Notice on Trade of Strategic Items on 24 April 2023, effective 28 April 2023, adding 741 items to the Russia/Belarus situational-licence (상황허가) list. The added items span industrial machinery, petroleum and gas refining equipment, steel, chemicals, automotive goods and quantum computers judged to have high military-diversion potential. MOTIE stated the amendment brings Korea's export-control coverage of Russia/Belarus closer to that of the US, EU and Japan, incorporating 2022 international export-control-regime agreements and reflecting the US's 2nd-6th Russia sanctions rounds and a substantial part of the EU's measures.

The Bureau of Industry and Security expanded EAR sanctions against Russia and Belarus effective 24 February 2023, adding 322 HTS-6 industrial items to Supplement No. 4 to Part 746 (oil-and-gas equipment, flat-rolled steel, pumps, turbines, marine and aviation engines) and 276 luxury goods to Supplement No. 5. Supplement No. 6 was amended to add biological and chemical-synthesis equipment including bioreactors, peptide synthesizers, and nucleotide reagents, targeting Russia's biodefence and dual-use procurement pathway. The rule also migrated Supplement No. 2 from Schedule B to HTS-6 identifiers to align with allied partner frameworks, added Taiwan to the list of countries excluded from licence requirements, and extended Section 744.7 end-use restrictions to cover in-country transfers inside Russia and Belarus.

South Africa's Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, acting under sections 5 and 6 of the International Trade Administration Act 71 of 2002, published Government Gazette Notices R.2801-R.2804 (Gazette No. 47627, 30 November 2022). The notices impose a temporary six-month export ban (30 November 2022 - 30 May 2023) on ferrous and non-ferrous waste and scrap metal, suspend ITAC's Price Preference System for scrap metal for the same period, and introduce new export permit requirements on semi-finished metal products and import permit requirements on furnaces and scrap-melting machinery. The measure was framed as an emergency response to copper and scrap-metal theft from public infrastructure, estimated at roughly R47 billion a year.

Indonesia accelerated the implementation of its raw nickel ore export ban, originally scheduled for 2022, to take effect on 1 January 2020. Announced 30 August 2019 by Minister Ignasius Jonan via ESDM Regulation No. 11/2019, the ban prohibits the export of nickel ore with grades below 1.7% Ni (effectively all Indonesian saprolite and limonite ore that previously flowed to Chinese stainless-steel and ferronickel mills) and forces ore to be processed domestically into intermediate products (nickel pig iron, ferronickel, mixed hydroxide precipitate, nickel sulfate). The policy is part of the long-running "hilirisasi" (downstream-isation) strategy and was the trigger for the >$30B wave of Chinese-led nickel- processing investment in Sulawesi (Morowali, Weda Bay) that has since made Indonesia the dominant global nickel producer.