Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The Bahraini Council of Ministers, chaired by HRH Crown Prince and Prime Minister Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa and issued pursuant to directives of HM King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, launched the five-pillar Economic Recovery Plan on 31 October 2021 as the government's post-COVID-19 structural-adjustment and growth framework through 2024–2030. The plan catalyses a USD 30 billion strategic-projects pipeline, delivers six new priority-sector strategies (oil and gas, tourism, logistics, financial services, telecommunications/ICT, manufacturing), targets 20,000 new Bahraini jobs and 10,000 annual training slots, and mandates fiscal balance by 2024 including the doubling of VAT from 5% to 10% effective 1 January 2022 under Royal Decree 33/2021. It is the foundational parent framework for all subsequent Bahraini sectoral decrees and investment decisions through 2030, and is materially relevant to the global non-Chinese aluminium supply chain through Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), one of the world's largest non-Chinese primary aluminium smelters at approximately 1.5 million tonnes per annum.

The Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国个人信息保护法 — PIPL) was adopted at the 30th meeting of the 13th NPC Standing Committee on 20 August 2021 and entered into force on 1 November 2021, constituting the third and final pillar of China's cybersecurity and data-governance regulatory trinity alongside the Cybersecurity Law (2016) and the Data Security Law (2021). The PIPL is China's comprehensive personal-information statute establishing consent-based and necessity-based legal bases for PI processing, a tiered cross-border personal-data transfer regime (CAC security assessment / PI protection certification / Standard Contractual Clauses), extraterritorial application (Art. 3) to non-Chinese controllers offering services to or analysing the behaviour of PRC residents, and a heightened protection regime for sensitive personal information and data of minors under 14. It mandates data-protection impact assessments, personal-information-protection-officer obligations at designated handlers, breach notification, and a full suite of data-subject rights including access, rectification, deletion, portability, objection, and automated- decision-making opt-out. Article 53 requires overseas controllers to establish a domestic representative or designated entity in China, providing a domestic enforcement counterparty.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added four Burma-based entities to the Entity List effective July 6, 2021 under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), citing their support for the Myanmar State Administration Council (SAC) military that seized power on February 1, 2021. The listing covers King Royal Technologies Co., Ltd. (satellite communications services for the Burmese military) and three Wanbao-affiliated copper mining companies (Myanmar Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd., Myanmar Yang Tse Copper Ltd., and Wanbao Mining Ltd.) that maintain revenue-sharing arrangements with Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL), a military conglomerate that funds Burma's Ministry of Defence. All four entities face a presumption-of-denial license policy with no exceptions permitted for any items subject to the EAR.

The Data Security Law of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国数据安全法) was adopted at the 29th meeting of the 13th NPC Standing Committee on 10 June 2021 and entered into force on 1 September 2021, constituting the second pillar of China's cybersecurity and data-governance regulatory trinity alongside the Cybersecurity Law (2016) and the Personal Information Protection Law (2021). The DSL establishes a tiered data-classification regime — "important data" and "national core data" — with escalating security obligations including risk assessment, risk monitoring, breach reporting, and classified-protection requirements for data handlers. It introduces a data-export security review for "important data" generated or collected within China, the statutory parent authority operationalised by the 2024 CAC Cross-Border Data Flow Provisions, and enacts a §36 blocking statute prohibiting Chinese organisations and individuals from transferring data stored in China to foreign judicial or law-enforcement authorities without prior PRC government approval.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added eight entities to the Entity List — six based in Pakistan and two in the UAE — on grounds that they were acting contrary to US national security or foreign policy interests through involvement in proliferation to unsafeguarded nuclear activities. All EAR items destined for these entities require a license with a presumption of denial; no license exceptions are available. Separately, one China-based entity (Molecular Devices Shanghai Corporation) was removed from the Military End-User (MEU) List, and a second China MEU entry was renamed (Hutchison Optel Telecom Technology → Chongqing Optel Telecom Technology Co., Ltd.).

Regulation (EU) 2021/821, adopted 20 May 2021 and applied from 9 September 2021, establishes the Union regime for controlling exports, brokering, technical assistance, transit, and transfer of dual-use items, repealing Regulation (EC) No 428/2009. Annex I lists controlled items implementing internationally agreed dual-use controls under the Wassenaar Arrangement, MTCR, Australia Group, NSG, and Chemical Weapons Convention. The regulation introduces a new catch-all control on cyber-surveillance technologies that could facilitate human-rights violations (Art. 5 and Annex IV), and strengthens cooperation between Member States and the European Commission, placing specific obligations on exporters. It serves as the statutory anchor for all EU export licences, every multilateral-regime transposition into EU law, and coordination mechanisms with US BIS, UK ECJU, JP METI, and KR MOTIE export-control regimes.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) on April 9, 2021 to extend military-intelligence end-use and end-user controls to Burma (Myanmar) and to apply U.S.-person activity prohibitions to Burma's military-intelligence entities — specifically the Office of Chief of Military Security Affairs (OCMSA) and the Directorate of Signal. The rule also corrected technical errors introduced by BIS's January 15, 2021 interim final rule (FR Doc 2021-01879), which had originally established the military-intelligence end-use and end-user control framework covering China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela. The addition of Burma responded directly to the February 1, 2021 SAC military coup and the Burmese military's use of surveillance technology to oppress civil society, restrict internet access, and imprison protesters.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued an interim final rule on January 15, 2021 substantially expanding the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) Part 744 end-use and end-user control framework to cover military-intelligence entities in China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela. The rule created a new license requirement for exports of ANY EAR-subject item to named military-intelligence end-users — including EAR99-classified items — and separately imposed restrictions on U.S. persons worldwide providing "support" to military-intelligence end-uses or end-users without a BIS licence. It also broadened chemical and biological weapons controls from "will directly assist" to "will support," expanding the reach of §744.4 and §744.3 on WMD-delivery systems. A technical correction published March 17, 2021 (FR Doc 2021-05623) fixed a drafting error in Instruction 9 that would have inadvertently deleted §744.3(a)(3)(i)-(ii), the rocket systems and UAV provisions.