Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2665 actions· ✨ 90 recent

Bangladesh Bank's Foreign Exchange Policy Department issued Circular No. 14 of 20 April 2025, amending paragraph 26, Chapter 7 of the Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions, 2018 (GFET-2018) to liberalise import-LC discrepancy-handling procedures. Authorised Dealers (AD banks) may now settle discrepant import bills against importer-issued indemnity-and-waiver letters without prior Bangladesh Bank approval, provided discrepancies do not contravene UCP-600 or constitute material changes as defined in GFET-2018 para 31(c). The same treatment is extended to back-to-back import LCs under the export-oriented bonded-warehouse and EPZ regime, directly benefiting Bangladesh's garment-manufacturing sector in settling raw-material import payments against export-LC proceeds.

Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 establishes the first EU-wide binding prohibition on placing, making available on, or exporting from the EU single market any products made with forced labour at any stage of production, manufacture, harvest, extraction or processing. The regulation is cross-sector and horizontal — no sectoral exemptions apply. It entered into force on 13 December 2024, with a phased implementation schedule; procedural and institutional framework provisions apply from 13 December 2024, while full operational application begins on 14 December 2027. The regulation empowers national competent authorities (and the Commission for state-imposed forced-labour cases involving third countries) to investigate, require withdrawal, and order destruction of non-compliant goods, and establishes a Commission-maintained publicly accessible database of high-risk geographic areas, sectors, and products.

Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), replaces the 2009 Ecodesign Directive with a cross-cutting product-sustainability framework covering nearly all physical goods placed on the EU single market. It empowers the Commission to adopt binding delegated acts setting ecodesign requirements (durability, reparability, recyclability, recycled content, chemical restrictions, energy and resource efficiency) by product category, establishes a mandatory Digital Product Passport (DPP) for supply-chain traceability, and bans the destruction of unsold consumer products. The regulation entered into force on 18 July 2024; the Commission's first ESPR and Energy Labelling Working Plan (2025–2030, COM(2025) 187) was adopted in April 2025, prioritising textiles, furniture, tyres, electronics, and iron/steel/aluminium.

On 17 May 2024 the US Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF), chaired by DHS, published the largest single expansion of the UFLPA Entity List to date, adding 26 PRC-based companies (89 FR 43365). The majority are cotton traders and warehouse operators located outside the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) but identified as downstream conduits laundering XUAR-origin cotton into global supply chains. Under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act's rebuttable-presumption (§2(d)(2)(B)(v)), goods wholly or in part produced by any listed entity are presumed to violate 19 U.S.C. §1307 and are barred from US entry unless the importer demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that no forced labour was involved. US apparel brands with exposure to the listed traders (Levi's, Gap, PVH/Calvin Klein sourcing chains) were required to trace and unwind that exposure within 60 days.

Canada's Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act (S.C. 2023, c. 9; "Bill S-211") received Royal Assent on 11 May 2023 and entered into force on 1 January 2024. It imposes a binding annual supply-chain disclosure obligation on government institutions and in-scope private-sector entities (any two of: ≥CAD 20m assets, ≥CAD 40m revenue, ≥250 employees) requiring a public report by 31 May each year detailing steps taken to prevent and reduce the risk of forced or child labour in their supply chains. The Act also amends the Canadian Customs Tariff (Schedule 9898.00.00) to extend the existing import prohibition on goods produced with forced labour to also cover goods produced with child labour, enforced at the border by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). Criminal penalties of up to CAD 250,000 apply for non-compliance, false reporting, or obstruction.

Russian Government Resolution No. 506 of 29 March 2022, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and effective 30 March 2022, authorises the Ministry of Industry and Trade (Minpromtorg) to designate categories of goods exempt from articles 1252(4), 1359(6) and 1487 of the Russian Civil Code on national/regional exhaustion of trademark and other intellectual- property rights. Followed by Minpromtorg Order No. 1532 of 19 April 2022 publishing an initial list of 55 goods categories and named brands — including pharmaceuticals, electronics, automotive parts, mineral fuels, industrial chemicals, paper, textiles, base metals, and consumer goods — for which parallel (grey-market) imports without IP-holder consent are legalised. Designed as a sanctions-circumvention and supply-substitution instrument after the Western corporate exodus of March 2022; extended annually and most recently re-authorised through 31 December 2026.