Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2670 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The Mines and Minerals Development (Amendment) Act, No. 29 of 2022 restructures Zambia's Mineral Royalty Tax (MRT) on copper from a flat rate to a four-band price-linked sliding scale, effective 1 January 2023. Under the new regime, copper royalties range from 4% of norm value when the LME price is below USD 4,000/tonne to 10% when prices exceed USD 7,000/tonne — at prevailing LME copper prices (~USD 9,000–10,000/t in 2024–2026), the effective rate is 10%, one of the highest copper royalty rates in the global copper belt. The Act also codifies flat royalty rates for other base metals (5%), gemstones (6%), and precious metals (6%), and abolishes the prior flat-rate copper royalty that applied regardless of commodity-cycle position, materially increasing state rent capture in high-price environments while preserving a 4% floor for project viability at low prices.

Natural Resources Canada published Canada's Critical Minerals Strategy on 8 December 2022, committing $3.8 billion CAD over eight years (drawn from Budget 2022 and the Fall Economic Statement 2022) to develop Canada's position across the critical-minerals value chain. The strategy designates 31 priority minerals, sets six strategic pillars (data and geoscience, investment and trade, indigenous participation, workforce development, regulatory environment, and sustainability), and explicitly positions Canada as the preferred FTA-partner supplier for the US Inflation Reduction Act's domestic-content requirements under CUSMA/USMCA.

Angola's Ministry of Transport formalised a 30-year concession to Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR — Trafigura 49.5% / Mota-Engil 49.5% / Vecturis S.A. 1%) for the operation, management and maintenance of the Lobito Corridor — comprising the 1,300 km Benguela Railway from the Port of Lobito to Luau (Angola-DRC border) and the Lobito port mineral terminal. The international tender was won on 4 November 2022; the concession contract was signed on 4 July 2023 at a ceremony attended by the Presidents of Angola, the DRC and Zambia. LAR commenced operations in January 2024. The concession is paired with the trilateral Lobito Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency Agreement (LCTTFA), signed at Lobito Port on 27 January 2023 by the Transport ministers of Angola, the DRC and Zambia, which establishes the cross-border customs/transit framework for the corridor.

The Inflation Reduction Act (Public Law 117-169), signed by President Biden on 16 August 2022, contains the largest single package of clean-energy and clean-manufacturing subsidies in US history — Congressional Budget Office scored the energy and climate provisions at $369B over 10 years, with subsequent Treasury / academic estimates reaching $800B-$1.2T as uptake exceeded baseline. Core mechanisms include the Section 30D Clean Vehicle credit ($7,500 per qualifying EV), the Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit (per-unit credits for domestically-produced battery cells, modules, electrodes, and critical-mineral processing), the Section 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit, and the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Credit. Critically, the law contains Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) provisions barring credit eligibility for vehicles or components linked to entities controlled by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.

The Uganda Mining and Minerals Act 2022, passed by Parliament on 17 February 2022 and signed into law by President Museveni on 14 October 2022, replaces the Mining Act 2003 (Cap 148) and establishes a comprehensive new legal framework for Uganda's extractive sector. The Act grants the Republic of Uganda a 15% free-carried equity interest in all large- and medium-scale mining operations, introduces Mineral Production-Sharing Agreements (MPSAs) as a new licensing instrument alongside reformed exploration, retention, and mining licences, and establishes the Uganda National Mining Company (UNMC) as the state participation vehicle. A mandatory Mineral Beneficiation framework ties export permits to local-processing thresholds, while tightened local-content rules cover procurement, employment, and services obligations, and a new ASM formalisation regime introduces traceability and Mineral Buying Centre requirements.

The Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority (SBMA) granted five-year exploration licences on 14 February 2022 (formal ceremony 23 February 2022) to three operators — Cook Islands Cobalt (CIC) Limited, Moana Minerals Limited (a subsidiary of Ocean Minerals LLC), and CIIC Seabed Resources Limited — under the Seabed Minerals Act 2019, marking the first commercial seabed-mineral exploration rights awarded in any Pacific island EEZ. The licences cover polymetallic nodule deposits across the Cook Islands' ~1.96 million km² exclusive economic zone, estimated at approximately 6.7 billion wet tonnes rich in cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese at 4,500–5,300 m depth on the abyssal plain. Initial five-year terms run to February 2027; in November 2025 the SBMA confirmed all three licences will be extended a further five years to at least 2032, pending renewal applications evaluated by the independent Licensing Panel.