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

Arrêté ministériel n° 00964/CAB.MIN/MINES/01/2025, signed 19 December 2025 by DRC Mines Minister Louis Watum Kabamba, suspends with immediate effect all activities of entities (notably comptoirs d'achat / buying counters, treatment units and similar structures) involved in the purchase, processing, transformation and commercialisation of copper and cobalt minerals sourced from artisanal exploitation across the country. Industrial, legally established mining operators are excluded. The order requires affected entities to submit compliance documentation within ten days, establishes an ad hoc commission to verify administrative, legal, technical and traceability conformity (15-day review window), and obliges operators to demonstrate the lawful origin of their supplies in line with OECD due-diligence guidance. Framed as a "conservatory" measure to restore order in the cupro-cobaltifère value chain and curb illicit exports.

Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources issued Permen ESDM No. 17 of 2025 on procedures for preparing, submitting and approving Work Plans and Budgets (RKAB) and reporting of mineral and coal mining activities. Signed by Minister Bahlil Lahadalia on 30 September 2025 and in force from 3 October 2025, the regulation reverses the 2023 three-year RKAB cycle back to an annual cycle, requires all IUP/IUPK holders to resubmit through the new MinerbaOne digital portal between 1 October and 15 November each year, annuls previously-issued 2026/2027 quotas, and introduces a 5-working-day auto-approval rule. Operationalised by a 2026 nickel-ore RKAB target band of 250–270 million wmt — roughly one third below the 2025 approved quota of ~379 million wmt — explicitly framed as a price-management and conservation instrument. First clear use of the RKAB framework as an explicit market-management lever rather than a domestic-licensing tool.

Republic Act 12253, signed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on 4 September 2025, replaces the Philippines' long-standing flat-royalty regime for large-scale metallic mining with a five-tier margin-based royalty (1–5% on income from mines outside mineral reservations; 5% retained inside reservations) layered on a five-tier windfall-profits tax (1–10% on profits above a 30% margin), and ring-fences each mining agreement as a separate taxable entity. The law amends the National Internal Revenue Code (RA 8424) and is projected to raise an additional PHP 25.08 bn over 2026–2029. The new fiscal regime became operative on 17 February 2026, 150 days after effectivity, with DOF-issued IRR.

The Minerals Regulation Commission Act, No. 14 of 2024 repeals and replaces Zambia's 2015 Mines and Minerals Development Act in its entirety, establishing a new autonomous Minerals Regulation Commission (MRC) as the country's central mining-sector regulator together with a standalone Mining Appeals Tribunal. The Act restructures licensing, royalty administration, monitoring and enforcement, and creates a dedicated dispute-resolution architecture separating regulatory and adjudicatory functions. Assented to on 20 December 2024 and gazetted on 26 December 2024, the Act took effect on 13 June 2025 pursuant to the Minerals Regulation Commission Act, 2024 (Commencement) Order, 2025 (SI 42 of 2025) signed by the Minister of Mines and Minerals Development on 3 June 2025.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 establishes a comprehensive EU statutory framework for all battery categories (portable, SLI, LMT, EV, industrial), imposing supply-chain due-diligence obligations for cobalt, lithium, nickel, and natural graphite; mandatory recycled-content thresholds; carbon-footprint declarations; a digital battery passport; and ambitious collection and recycling-efficiency targets, with rolling application dates running from February 2024 through August 2036. It repeals Battery Directive 2006/66/EC and applies to every economic operator placing batteries on the EU market, binding every EV, consumer-electronics, and stationary-storage supply chain that relies on DRC cobalt, Australian/Chilean lithium, Indonesian/Philippine nickel, and Chinese/Mozambican graphite.

On 27 January 2018 the DRC National Assembly adopted Loi n° 18/001, comprehensively amending the foundational 2002 Mining Code (Loi n° 007/2002); President Joseph Kabila promulgated the law on 9 March 2018, published in the Journal Officiel special issue of 28 March 2018, with implementing Décret n° 18/024 (Règlement Minier) following on 8 June 2018. The Code introduces a 10% royalty on minerals designated "strategic" by the Council of Ministers — cobalt, coltan, lithium, and germanium confirmed — up from the 2% standard non-ferrous rate, and raises all standard mining royalties (non-ferrous 2→3.5%, precious metals 2.5→3.5%, precious stones 4→6%). The state's mandatory free-carry interest in new mining projects is doubled from 5% to 10% (Article 71), with a further 10% paid-carry option creating an effective 20% state-participation floor; contract-stability guarantees are simultaneously curtailed from 10 to 5 years (Article 276), explicitly invalidating pre-existing stabilisation clauses. As the foundational statute governing every DRC mining-rights grant, royalty-rate setting, and export-control delegation, the 2018 Code is the parent authority for ARECOMS (established 2019 under its strategic-minerals framework) and the legal basis for both the 2025 cobalt export-ban/quota regime and the 2025 artisanal-processing suspension — making it the mandatory upstream context for the entire filed DRC action cluster.

Loi n° 2014-138, adopted by the Assemblée nationale and promulgated by President Alassane Ouattara on 24 March 2014, is the foundational mining-rights statute governing all mineral prospecting, research, and exploitation in Côte d'Ivoire. Its 197 articles across 16 titles repeal the prior Loi n° 95-553 (1995 Code Minier) and establish the modern permit regime, a 10% state free-carry in all industrial mining projects via SODEMI, and the royalty + ad valorem fiscal architecture that underpins every subsequent mining-convention and fiscal-law amendment. As West Africa's second-largest gold producer (approx. 45 t/yr) with growing bauxite and manganese exploration, CI's mining-code architecture is a material determinant of supply-chain access for Western and Chinese industrial consumers of these commodities.