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

China's Ministry of Commerce announced on 3 December 2024 (MOFCOM Announcement No. 46 of 2024) a formal ban on dual-use exports to the United States of gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials including diamond and cubic boron nitride. The measure also imposed strict end-use review on graphite exports to the US, with extra scrutiny of military end-uses. It came one day after BIS issued a major export- control package on 2 December 2024 expanding controls on Chinese semiconductor equipment and adding 140 entities to the Entity List, and was framed by MOFCOM as a national- security countermeasure.

The National Assembly of Vietnam passed the Law on Data (Luật Dữ liệu), No. 60/2024/QH15, on 30 November 2024; it enters into force on 1 July 2025. The Law is Vietnam's first comprehensive horizontal data-governance statute, extending regulation beyond personal data (already covered by Decree 13/2023/ND-CP) to all digital data — public, private, and sectoral. It introduces statutory categories of "important data" (dữ liệu quan trọng) and "core data" (dữ liệu cốt lõi) tied to national-defence and national-security review for cross-border transfer, and establishes the National Data Centre under the Ministry of Public Security plus a statutory data-broker / data-services licensing framework.

Premier Li Qiang signed State Council Decree No. 792 on 19 October 2024 promulgating the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Export Controls for Dual-Use Items, with effect from 1 December 2024. The regulation, organised in six chapters and 50 articles, consolidates the previously fragmented nuclear / biological / chemical / missile dual-use control regimes into a single State Council framework operationalising the 2020 Export Control Law. It introduces a control-list / temporary-control / watchlist architecture, a statutory end-user / end-use commitment regime, transit / transhipment / re-export controls, extraterritorial reach over PRC items downstream, and explicit linkage to the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law. On 15 November 2024 MOFCOM, MIIT, GAC and SCA jointly issued Announcement No. 51 of 2024 publishing the consolidated Dual-Use Items Export Control List with a unified five-character ECCN-style coding system, also effective 1 December 2024.

Cabinet Resolution No. 97 of 2024 is the implementing regulation of UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 43 of 2021 on Commodities Subject to Non-Proliferation. It operationalises the UAE's horizontal dual-use export-control regime, empowering the Executive Office for Control & Non-Proliferation (EOCN) to designate prohibited and restricted goods on the National Control List and to issue export/transit/re-export permits within 20 working days. The Control List covers nuclear materials, chemicals and precursors, electronics, telecommunications, sensors and lasers, navigation systems, avionics, marine and aerospace equipment, propulsion systems, and "national controlled commodities" (armoured vehicles, autonomous equipment). This is the regulatory architecture under which post-G42 advanced AI-chip outbound flows from the UAE are licensed.

China's Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs jointly issued Announcement No. 33 of 2024 on 15 August 2024, imposing an export licensing regime on antimony ore, antimony metal, antimony oxides (purity ≥99.99%), organic antimony compounds, antimony hydride, indium antimonide, and gold-antimony smelting technology, effective 15 September 2024. The announcement also covers six-sided top-press equipment used in superhard-materials (diamond, cubic boron nitride) production. China accounts for approximately 47% of global antimony mine output and an estimated 75-80% of refined antimony supply; in the months following implementation, Chinese antimony export volumes fell by approximately 97% and global antimony trioxide spot prices roughly doubled.

Japan's National Diet enacted the Act on the Protection and Use of Critical Economic Security Information (重要経済安保情報の保護及び活用に関する法律, Act No. 27 of 2024) on 10 May 2024; it was promulgated on 17 May 2024 and came into full operation on 16 May 2025. The law establishes Japan's first peace-time economic-security clearance regime extending to private-sector employees. It designates "Critical Economic Security Information" (CESI) covering threat-intelligence on critical-infrastructure cyber attacks, regulatory-review information on essential infrastructure, and vulnerability data on critical-product supply chains; mandates Cabinet Office "適性評価" (suitability assessment) for cleared personnel; and imposes criminal penalties of up to five years' imprisonment for unauthorised disclosure. The CESI Act complements the 2022 Economic Security Promotion Act (ESPA), closing the information-protection gap and aligning Japan's framework with Five Eyes and EU partners for joint R&D and dual-use cooperation.

The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Act 2024 (C2024A00021) received Royal Assent on 8 April 2024 and created three new criminal offences in the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012: section 10A (supply of Defence and Strategic Goods List technology in Australia to a non-exempt foreign person); section 10B (secondary supply of DSGL Part 1 Munitions or Part 2 Dual-Use Sensitive/Very Sensitive goods or technology outside Australia when originally exported from Australia); and section 10C (provision of DSGL Part 1 services to foreign nationals outside Australia). All three offences carry maximum penalties of 10 years imprisonment or 2,500 penalty units (~A$782,500), or both. The offence framework commenced 1 September 2024 with a six-month compliance-transition period; criminal liability attached from 1 March 2025. The Act also codifies AUKUS-partnership exemptions, carving out supplies to and from citizens and permanent residents of the United Kingdom and United States, underpinning the licence-free trilateral technology-transfer environment sought under AUKUS Pillar 2.

On 5 March 2024 the European Commission and EU High Representative jointly published the first-ever European Defence Industrial Strategy (EDIS) via Joint Communication JOIN(2024) 10 final. EDIS sets binding benchmarks for EU member-state procurement: ≥40% of defence equipment acquired cooperatively by 2030, ≥35% of defence trade conducted intra-EU by 2030, and ≥50% of EU-member defence expenditure directed to European-origin products by 2030 rising to ≥60% by 2035. The strategy is the programmatic framework underpinning EDIP (Regulation (EU) 2025/2643), EDF, ASAP and EDIRPA, and marks the first comprehensive attempt to embed defence industrial objectives into EU single-market and budgetary architecture.

On 29 February 2024 Switzerland's WBF decided to align with the EU's 13th Russia sanctions package by amending the Ordinance on Measures in Connection with the Situation in Ukraine (SR 946.231.176.72), effective 1 March 2024 at 18:00 CET. The amendment adds over 100 individuals and nearly 90 entities — mainly Russian military-industrial-complex firms and suppliers of DPRK-sourced weapons to Russia — to the asset-freeze and designation lists, and extends the dual-use/military-technology export ban to 27 additional companies believed to be circumventing existing controls.

On 23 February 2024, two years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2024/745, amending Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 and comprising the EU's 13th Russia sanctions package. It adds new CN codes to the export-ban annexes (dual-use and advanced-technology goods) and adds 27 entities — including firms based in China, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Turkiye — to the list of parties barred from any exemption from the export ban, on the basis they are assessed to be supporting Russia's military-industrial complex via circumvention routes. Asset-freeze listings (106 individuals, 88 entities) under the parallel Council Decision took effect 23 February 2024; the sectoral trade measures took effect 24 February 2024.

On 22 January 2024, Brazil's National Council for Industrial Development (CNDI), reactivated by President Lula in 2023, launched Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB) — Brazil's first comprehensive national industrial policy since the 2011-2014 Plano Brasil Maior. The framework commits roughly R$300 billion (~USD 60 billion) in financing through 2026, distributed across loans, non-refundable grants and equity participations administered by BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank), Finep (Research and Projects Financing Company) and Embrapii (Brazilian Industrial Research and Innovation Company), with quantitative targets running to 2033. The R$300bn envelope combines R$106bn announced at the first CNDI meeting in July 2023 with R$194bn redirected from existing budget lines. NIB is structured around six "missions": (1) sustainable and digital agro-industrial chains, (2) health-industrial complex resilience (medicines, vaccines, devices), (3) urban infrastructure and green mobility, (4) digital transformation and Industry 4.0 including semiconductors, (5) bioeconomy and energy transition, and (6) defence, sovereignty and national-security technologies. Two presidential decrees signed the same day establish local-content preferences for New PAC public-procurement bids and create an Interministerial Public Procurement Commission. As of February 2025, BNDES had approved R$220bn in NIB-aligned operations, and the plan has anchored downstream sectoral programmes including Brasil Semicon, the Mover automotive programme and Mais Inovação.

The Significant Investments Review Act 2024 (Act No. 1 of 2024) is Singapore's first horizontal, cross-sector statutory FDI screening regime. The Bill was passed by Parliament on 9 January 2024, assented to by the President on 6 February 2024 and gazetted on 14 February 2024; the Act commenced on 28 March 2024 under the SIRA 2024 (Commencement) Notification (S 228/2024), together with the Significant Investments Review Regulations 2024 (S 229/2024). The Act creates an "ownership-and-control" layer over a limited number of "designated entities" the Minister for Trade and Industry has identified as critical to Singapore's national-security interests, plus an "any entity" call-in power exercisable against firms that have acted against Singapore's national-security interests, regardless of whether they are designated. Acquisitions of ≥5% require post-closing notification within 7 days; acquisitions of ≥12% / ≥25% / ≥50% and cessations of ≥50% / ≥75% controller status require prior ministerial approval. Administered by the Office of Significant Investments Review (OSIR) within MTI. SIRA is the Singaporean structural peer of US CFIUS, EU Regulation 2019/452, the German AWG §§55-62, the French Décret 2014-479, the UK NSI Act 2021, the Netherlands Wet Vifo, and the Canada ICA national-security review.