Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 24 September 2025 the Federal Railroad Administration published in the Federal Register a withdrawal-and-reissue of the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the FY2024-2025 National Railroad Partnership Program / Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program for projects off the Northeast Corridor (FSP-National), making up to USD 5,070,784,989 available for competitive intercity passenger-rail capital awards, including roughly USD 2.4bn de-obligated from the California High-Speed Rail project. Global Trade Alert logs the NOFO as a public-procurement-localisation intervention because FRA capital-assistance grants carry standing Build America, Buy America Act (BABA) domestic-content and final-assembly requirements. The reissue also withdrew DEI- and climate-related selection criteria attached to the prior Biden-era version of the NOFO. Applications were due 7 January 2026.

On 18 September 2025 the Bundestag adopted the Gesetz zur Errichtung eines Sondervermögens "Infrastruktur und Klimaneutralität" (SVIKG), authorising up to EUR 500 bn of additional federal borrowing over a twelve-year horizon outside the constitutional debt brake, on the basis of the new Article 143h Grundgesetz inserted by the March 2025 constitutional amendment. The envelope splits into up to EUR 100 bn for Länder and municipal infrastructure (channelled via the companion Länder- und Kommunal-Infrastrukturfinanzierungsgesetz, LuKIFG, passed 9 October 2025), EUR 100 bn transferred to the Klima- und Trans- formationsfonds (KTF) in annual instalments through 2034, and up to EUR 300 bn for additional federal investments in transport, energy/ heat, hospital, education, digitalisation, civil protection and R&D infrastructure. Investments are eligible retroactively from 1 January 2025 and may be approved through 31 December 2036; loan repayment begins no later than 1 January 2044. SVIKG is the largest single industrial-finance instrument launched by an EU member state in the post-2022 industrial-policy cycle.

The European Commission approved, under EU State aid rules (case SA.118317), a €300 million Slovak scheme to support railway undertakings and rolling-stock owners purchasing new rail freight wagons. Support takes the form of direct grants covering up to 50% of acquisition costs, capped at €200 million per applicant. The Commission assessed the scheme under Article 93 TFEU (transport coordination aid) and found it consistent with the EU's modal-shift goal of moving freight from road to rail.

On 9 August 2023 the German Federal Cabinet adopted the government draft Wirtschaftsplan 2024 of the Climate and Transformation Fund (Klima- und Transformationsfonds, KTF) and the accompanying 2024–2027 financial plan. The plan envisaged ca. EUR 211.8 bn of programme spending across 2024–2027 (EUR 57.6 bn in 2024 alone), funded by national and European emissions-trading revenues plus federal grants, with major lines for semiconductor production (~EUR 4.0 bn in 2024), hydrogen industry build-out (~EUR 3.8 bn), building renovation (~EUR 18.9 bn), EEG renewables support (~EUR 12.6 bn) and electric mobility. The KTF is the principal German federal vehicle for co-financing the EU Chips Act state-aid envelope, IPCEI Hydrogen, decarbonisation contracts (Klimaschutzverträge) and other net-zero-aligned industrial-policy subsidies.

The CHIPS and Science Act (Public Law 117-167), signed into law by President Biden on 9 August 2022, appropriated $52.7 billion in direct semiconductor industry support: $39B in manufacturing incentives administered by the Commerce Department, $13.2B for R&D and workforce, and $0.5B for legacy-chip and supply-chain programs. It also created an Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit (Section 48D) — a 25% refundable investment tax credit on qualified semiconductor manufacturing property. The law included a "guardrails" clause prohibiting recipients from expanding advanced-node capacity in countries of concern (most prominently China) for 10 years following award.

The Union Cabinet approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for Specialty Steel on 22 July 2021; the scheme was notified in the Gazette of India on 29 July 2021 by the Ministry of Steel and detailed scheme guidelines were published on 20 October 2021. Total outlay: Rs 6,322 crore (~USD 850m) over five years (FY 2024-25 through FY 2028-29). The scheme covers five product categories (coated/plated products, high-strength / wear-resistant steel, specialty rails, alloy steel and steel wires, and electrical steel) across 19 sub-categories, and offers incentives of 4-12% on incremental sales for end-to-end domestic specialty-steel production with melted-and-poured input requirement. PLI 1.1 reopened applications on 6 January 2025; PLI 1.2 (third round) was launched in 2025-2026 with a revised four-category / 22-sub-category structure and incentive rates up to 15%.