Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

Mozambique's Council of Ministers, at its 6th Ordinary Session on 3 March 2026, approved resolutions establishing two Interministerial Coordination Committees — one for the Development Plan of Area 1 of the Rovuma Block (the TotalEnergies-led Mozambique LNG project, formerly Anadarko) and one for Area 4 of the Rovuma Block (the ExxonMobil/Eni-led Rovuma LNG / Coral South / Coral Norte projects). Both committees are chaired by the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy and include the ministers of finance, economy, transport and logistics, labour, and land and environment, plus INP, the Tax Authority, and the Bank of Mozambique as technical participants. The mandate is to monitor and ensure the rapid, coordinated government assessment of amendments to the development plans for these projects, which together represent approximately USD 50bn+ in committed capital in Cabo Delgado province and are the primary drivers of Mozambique's projected fiscal revenue stream through 2060+.

Niger's military-led Conseil des Ministres (CNSP) on March 3, 2026 adopted three decrees terminating the establishment agreements of COMINI SARL, AFRIOR SA, and ECOMINE SA — gold mining and refining companies operating in Niger. The grounds cited are failure to pay taxes, non-submission of annual technical and financial reports, and breach of local-development financing commitments since 2023. Formal notices had been issued to the companies on February 17 and July 23, 2025 before the terminations. The action extends the CNSP's systematic tightening over strategic-resource industries, which also saw uranium licence revocations and a mine nationalisation in 2024–2025.

Sultan Haitham bin Tariq issued Royal Decree 39/2026 on 1 March 2026, published in the Sultanate of Oman Official Gazette Issue 1638 on 8 March 2026 (effective the following day), enacting a new Statute of the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ) and consolidating the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates under the unified OPAZ regulatory umbrella. The Statute restructures OPAZ's institutional architecture for administering Oman's 23 special economic zones, free zones, and industrial cities, expands OPAZ's supervisory and oversight powers — including project registration, licensing, permits, approvals, certificates, regulation of municipal services within zones — and mandates a single-window platform consolidating the full suite of zone-related services for investors. The decree is the institutional-governance complement to the substantive SEZ/FZ framework established by Royal Decree 38/2025 and operationalises the Vision 2040 economic-diversification strategy at the binding regulatory-authority layer, covering RO 22.4 bn (~USD 58 bn) in cumulative committed investment across the OPAZ-administered zone network.

Directive (EU) 2026/470 of 24 February 2026, published in the EU Official Journal on 26 February 2026 and entered into force on 18 March 2026, amends the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD, Directive (EU) 2022/2464) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD, Directive (EU) 2024/1760). It raises CSRD scope thresholds to undertakings with more than 1,000 employees and more than EUR 450 million net turnover, raises CSDDD scope thresholds to entities with more than 5,000 employees and EUR 1.5 billion turnover (and non-EU entities with EUR 1.5 billion EU turnover), drops the requirement to adopt or put into effect a climate transition plan under CSDDD, and replaces reasonable-assurance with limited-assurance for CSRD reports. CSRD-related provisions must be transposed by 19 March 2027; CSDDD-related provisions by 26 July 2028.

President Trump signed Executive Order "Ending Certain Tariff Actions" on 20 February 2026 (Federal Register doc 2026-03832, published 25 February 2026), terminating the additional ad-valorem duties imposed under nine prior IEEPA-based executive orders. The order followed within hours of the US Supreme Court's 6-3 decision the same day in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. ___ (2026), holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs and vacating the Trump 2.0 IEEPA tariff regime. The EO directs CBP to cease collection "as soon as practicable"; CSMS guidance set the collection-end date at 12:00 a.m. eastern on 24 February 2026. The order explicitly preserves all underlying national-emergency declarations and all non-IEEPA trade actions — Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, Section 301 of the Trade Act, Section 122 of the Trade Act, and Section 201 — so the Section 232 cascade and the paired Section 122 10% temporary surcharge (effective 24 Feb 2026) remain in force. This is the first SCOTUS-driven repeal of a presidential tariff regime in the modern era and recalibrates the entire post-2024 US tariff architecture by removing IEEPA as a legal pillar.

Kenya's Senate introduced the Artificial Intelligence Bill, 2026 (Senate Bills No. 4 of 2025) on 19 February 2026, sponsored by Nominated Senator Karen Nyamu; the bill received its first reading on 2 April 2026 and was committed to the Senate Standing Committee on Information, Communication and Technology for public-input review. The bill establishes a risk-based AI regulatory framework explicitly modelled on the EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689), creating a four-tier classification (prohibited / high-risk / limited-risk / minimal-risk) with conformity- assessment, technical-documentation, and human-oversight obligations for high-risk AI systems. It creates the Office of the Artificial Intelligence Commissioner as a new statutory regulator with licensing, enforcement, and administrative-penalty powers, and bans social-scoring systems, real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces, emotion recognition in workplaces and education, and predictive policing based on profiling. The bill is the first comprehensive national AI regulatory instrument in Africa, closing a structural geographic gap in the global AI-governance architecture and positioning Kenya as the Brussels-effect template-recipient for the African continent.

At the Maiden Mining Local Content Summit held in Takoradi on 18 February 2026, Minerals Commission CEO Isaac Tandoh announced the revocation of more than 300 small-scale mining licences held fraudulently or left dormant, alongside a comprehensive regulatory reset covering all segments of Ghana's mining sector. The reform package includes the repeal of L.I. 2462 (which had permitted mining in forest reserves), introduction of a new medium-scale licensing tier, a sliding-scale gold royalty regime designed to increase state capture during high-price periods, and mandatory local-content thresholds across procurement, employment, and equity participation. Surface-mining operations will be required to use fully Ghanaian-owned contractors; underground-mining contracts must carry at least 50% Ghanaian ownership. The reforms structurally affect large-scale operators including Newmont, AngloGold Ashanti, Zijin Mining, and Atlantic Lithium.

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (DOD, GSA, and NASA) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on 17 February 2026 (FR Doc 2026-03065, 91 FR 7223) implementing Section 5949(a) of the NDAA FY2023 (Pub. L. 117-263), which bars executive agencies from acquiring electronic products or services containing semiconductor components designed, produced, or provided by SMIC, CXMT, YMTC, or their affiliates. A Part B prohibition extends the restriction to "critical systems" whose subsystems incorporate covered semiconductors regardless of COTS sourcing. The comment period closed 20 April 2026; proposed prohibitions take effect 23 December 2027.

On 13 February 2026 President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed Executive Order No. 9 of 2026 directing all Production Sharing Contract operators and contractors to remit Royalty Oil, Tax Oil, Profit Oil, and Profit Gas directly to the Federation Account, bypassing prior NNPC Limited intermediated collection. The order simultaneously eliminates NNPC Limited's 30% management fee on profit oil/gas, suspends the 30% Frontier Exploration Fund deduction, and redirects Gas Flare Penalty proceeds to the Federation Account — materially walking back the fiscal architecture established under Petroleum Industry Act 2021 §§ 9 and 53. An Implementation Committee chaired by the Minister of Finance was established to operationalise the order and resolve disputes.

Sultan Haitham bin Tariq issued Royal Decree 27/2026 on 11 February 2026, published in Official Gazette 1635 on 15 February 2026, entering into force 30 days later on 17 March 2026. The decree enacts the GCC Common Industrial Regulatory Law as binding Omani national law, implementing the GCC-wide harmonised framework originally adopted at the Supreme Council level (RD 61/2008) with an expanded scope covering manufacturing, service, advanced technology, knowledge, and environmental industries. The law mandates prior industrial licensing for all new and materially modified industrial projects, sets unified approval, revocation, and compliance standards, and explicitly repeals prior conflicting national provisions — completing Oman's implementation of the common GCC industrial regulatory architecture alongside parallel implementations in UAE, KSA, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. This is one of three simultaneous Royal Decrees issued on 11 February 2026, alongside RD 28/2026 (GCC Unified Customs Law amendments) and RD 39/2026 (OPAZ Statute restatute), forming a coherent 2026 Omani industrial and economic-zone architecture restatement.

DGFT Notification No. 58/2025-26, issued 5 February 2026 under the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1992, reclassifies imports of articles of platinum under ITC (HS) code 71141920 from "Free" to "Restricted", bringing them under Policy Condition No. 6 of Chapter 71 of the ITC (HS). Importers must obtain the requisite DGFT authorisation before undertaking such imports. Re-import of Indian-made platinum articles previously exported for exhibitions/export-promotion tours, and re-import of goods sent abroad for repair, remain "Free" and are unaffected by the change.

On 3 February 2026 the European Commission opened an in-depth Phase II investigation under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) — the second FSR ex officio case and the first targeting the renewable-energy wind-OEM sector — into whether Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., Ltd. and its EU affiliates received Chinese foreign subsidies (grants, preferential tax treatment, and state-bank preferential financing) that distort competition for wind-turbine supply and services in the EU internal market. The case (FS.100143) follows the April 2024 preliminary-review opening and subjects Goldwind to an 18-month Phase II investigation with potential redressive-measures decision. The action structurally extends the FSR enforcement perimeter from security equipment (Nuctech, FS.100068) into the green-transition energy-equipment supply chain.

On 2 February 2026 Kazatomprom disclosed in its 4Q25 Operations and Trading Update that it had amended multiple Subsoil Use Agreements (SUAs) to reduce the total 2026 licensed annual production ceiling from 32,777 tU to 29,697 tU — a reduction of approximately 3,080 tU (~9.4%). The primary driver is construction and commissioning delays at the Budenovskoye uranium deposit (JV with Uranium Energy Corp / UrAsia, Kazatomprom 51%), preventing the planned ramp-up. Revised 2026 production guidance of 27,500–29,000 tU on a 100% basis sits below the revised licensed ceiling, indicating that actual deliveries will be further constrained; force-majeure notices were issued to long-term offtake counterparties affected by the Budenovskoye shortfall. Kazakhstan accounts for approximately 43% of global primary uranium mine supply, making even a licensed-capacity adjustment a material signal for the global U3O8 and UF6 supply curve.

On 18 February 2025 Tailings Dam 15 at Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Limited's Chambishi facility (Copperbelt Province, Kalulushi District) failed, releasing acidic leach residue into the Chambishi Stream and the Mwambashi and Kafue Rivers; the company suspended operations and the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) commissioned an independent Environmental and Social Incident Impact Assessment (ESIIA). ZEMA received the consultant's final report on 19 December 2025 and held a public disclosure meeting in Kitwe on 6 January 2026. On 2 February 2026 the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development announced that the investigation had concluded and that, once ZEMA's review of the findings is complete, stakeholders will be engaged to determine remediation and compensation modalities. Company clean-up operations began in March 2026.

The Government of India, exercising powers under Section 11C of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, amended the First Schedule on 29 January 2026 to add "Coking Coal" explicitly to Part A (Coal expanded to "Coal, including Coking Coal") and to Part D (Critical and Strategic Minerals list). The designation transfers exclusive auction authority over coking coal mining blocks from state governments to the Central Government and extends the existing EIA public-consultation exemption — previously applicable to atomic and strategic minerals — to coking coal projects. India imports approximately 80% of its coking coal requirements (primarily from Australia, the United States, Russia, and Canada); the classification is the statutory pathway to fast-track domestic exploration, NMEDT funding eligibility, and KABIL-backed overseas-acquisition mandates for coking coal.

The Cabinet Secretary for Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs promulgated the Mining (Mineral Royalty Sharing) Regulations, 2026 (Legal Notice No. 3 of 2026) under section 183 of the Mining Act 2016 (No. 12 of 2016), published on 29 January 2026 in the Kenya Law database. The regulations establish the intergovernmental and community architecture for distributing mineral royalties collected under the parent Act: 70% to the national Consolidated Fund, 20% to the relevant County Revenue Fund Account(s), and 10% to a dedicated Community Mineral Royalties Account held in trust for host communities. This is the executive's procedural cure following the September 2025 High Court ruling that voided the 2024 Royalty Collection and Management Regulations (LN 106/2024) for inadequate public participation; LN 3/2026 focuses solely on distribution architecture and is therefore structurally distinct from the collection mechanics of its predecessor.

On 9 February 2026 the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) published a comprehensively revised enforcement and monetary-penalties guidance following its July–October 2025 public consultation. The update introduces a Settlement Scheme (20% penalty discount for subjects who agree not to contest OFSI's findings within 30 business days), an Early Account Scheme (up to 20% discount for legal persons providing a timely senior-attested factual account), a revised voluntary-disclosure framework (maximum discount cut from 50% to 30% and renamed to cover both prompt self-reporting and full cooperation), a four-level case-assessment seriousness matrix (severity × conduct), and fixed monetary penalties of £5,000 and £10,000 for information, reporting, and licensing offences. A planned legislative amendment (requiring primary legislation) will subsequently double the statutory civil monetary-penalty cap from £1m / 50%-of-breach to £2m / 100%-of-breach; in the interim the Policing and Crime Act 2017 caps remain in force. The revised guidance is the foundational enforcement architecture for all UK financial-sanctions programs (Russia, Iran, DPRK, Syria, Belarus, Myanmar, and 10+ additional regimes).

Germany's first cross-sector federal statute establishing minimum requirements for the physical protection and resilience of critical infrastructure operators (KRITIS) — sectors covered include energy, transport, water, food, ICT, financial services, health, and federal government infrastructure. Transposes EU Directive 2022/2557 (CER Directive on the resilience of critical entities). Identifies operators of critical facilities with Europe-wide significance, mandates national risk analyses for critical services, requires operator risk-management measures and creates a federal incident-reporting regime. Passed by the Bundestag on 29 January 2026, confirmed by the Bundesrat on 6 March 2026, published in BGBl. 2026 I Nr. 66 on 16 March 2026, in force from 17 March 2026.

Regulation (EU) 2026/261 of the European Parliament and of the Council (adopted 26 January 2026, in force 3 February 2026) sets a legally binding stepwise ban on imports of Russian-origin natural gas — both liquefied (LNG) and pipeline. Russian LNG under short-term contracts signed before 17 June 2025 is prohibited from 25 April 2026; long-term LNG contracts from 1 January 2027. Russian pipeline gas under short-term contracts is prohibited from 17 June 2026; long-term pipeline gas from 30 September 2027 (latest 1 November 2027 if EU storage targets remain on track). The regulation operates outside the Russia-sanctions architecture (Article 215 TFEU) as a REPowerEU internal-market instrument, with narrow operational-amendment carve- outs and no provision for volume increases.

Turkey's Public Procurement Authority published Communiqué No. 2026/1 in the Official Gazette (22 January 2026, Gazette No. 33145), raising the monetary thresholds and limits under Public Procurement Law No. 4734 by 27.67% — the December 2025 year-on-year change in the domestic producer price index (Yİ-ÜFE), applied per the Law's Article 67 mandatory annual indexation mechanism. The revised thresholds apply from 1 February 2026 through 31 January 2027, including an international-tender threshold of TL 18,734,124 for general-budget goods/services procurement and TL 686,924,429 for construction/works tenders. Global Trade Alert logged the update as a public-procurement-access intervention because raising the monetary bands widens the range of below-threshold tenders eligible for domestic-restricted procedures.

Peru's Decreto Legislativo N° 1695 (published El Peruano 20 January 2026) amends the Código Penal (Legislative Decree N° 635) to substantially escalate criminal penalties for illegal mining and illegal-origin mineral trafficking. Art 307-A (illegal mining) now carries 5–8 years imprisonment; Art 307-E (trafficking chemical precursors and machinery) and a new Art 307-F (trafficking illegal-origin mineral resources — covering transport, storage, export- loading, and commercialisation) each carry 6–9 years plus 100–600 días-multa. A new Art 307-G adds an inhabilitación penalty barring offenders from mining concessions and mineral commercialisation. The decree also amends Ley N° 30077 (Ley contra el Crimen Organizado) to formally classify illegal mining offences (Arts 307-A through 307-F) as organised crime, unlocking FECOR prosecutorial tools including controlled-delivery operations, FIU cooperation, money-laundering enhancements, and civil asset forfeiture.

On 19 January 2026 the Government of Vietnam issued Decree No. 29/2026/ND-CP, establishing the regulatory architecture for Vietnam's first domestic carbon trading exchange. The decree (6 chapters, 35 articles) governs registration, domestic coding, ownership transfer, custody, trading and settlement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission quotas and eligible carbon credits. The Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) operates the trading platform and the Vietnam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (VSDC) handles registration, custody and settlement, with a pilot phase running through 31 December 2028 (no exchange-services fee) ahead of full commercialisation from 1 January 2029.

Pakistan's Directorate General of Customs Valuation (Karachi), acting under the Federal Board of Revenue, issued Valuation Ruling No. 2035/2026 on 16 January 2026 under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969, fixing revised minimum customs (C&F) values for 62 models of old and used branded mobile phones (Apple, Samsung, Google Pixel, OnePlus) imported in commercial quantity without original packaging or accessories, conditional on the device having been activated at least six months before export. The revision was a downward rationalization — press reporting cites benchmark values ranging from US$25 (iPhone SE, 1st/2nd generation) up to US$460 (iPhone 15 Pro Max) — bringing declared-value floors back in line with a documented decline in global secondary-market prices for older-generation devices. Global Trade Alert logs China as the principal origin affected.

Pakistan's Directorate General of Customs Valuation (DGCV), acting under the Federal Board of Revenue, issued Valuation Ruling No. 2036/2026 on 16 January 2026 under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969, fixing revised minimum customs (assessable) values for imported ammunition. The ruling supersedes the prior ammunition valuation ruling (No. 1995/2025, dated 28 March 2025) after the Directorate found that declared transaction values no longer reflected prevailing international market prices. Global Trade Alert logs China, Oman and Turkiye as the principal ammunition-exporting origins affected by the revised benchmark. No specific per-unit values or an aggregate trade value were disclosed in the sources reviewed, so this is filed as a qualitative severity rating pending disclosure of the underlying value schedule.

Malaysia's Minister of Finance gazetted P.U. (A) 25/2026, the Customs (Prohibition of Imports) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2026, on 14 January 2026, taking effect 15 January 2026. The order adds ammonium nitrate and potassium nitrate to the list of goods subject to import licensing under the Customs (Prohibition of Imports) Order, requiring importers to obtain an approved permit before bringing either chemical into Malaysia. Both compounds have legitimate fertilizer and industrial uses but are also recognised explosive precursors, and the measure is administered as a dual-use/security-sensitive chemical control rather than a straightforward agricultural-input tariff. Global Trade Alert lists Canada, China and Germany among the trade partners affected by the new licensing gate.

FinCEN issued a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) under 31 U.S.C. § 5326 requiring banks and money transmitters located in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, Minnesota (i.e., Minneapolis–St. Paul metro) to file reports with FinCEN on transactions of $3,000 or more where the beneficiary is located outside the United States. The order is effective February 12, 2026 through August 10, 2026 and is paired with a parallel Treasury/IRS audit and enforcement push targeting alleged government-benefits fraud (notably the federal child-nutrition program rings under prosecution in Minnesota since 2022). It is the second high-profile FinCEN GTO of the Trump 2.0 administration after the Southwest-border MSB GTO.

The European Commission adopted Communication C(2026) 43 final on 9 January 2026, issuing the first formal interpretive guidelines on the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR, Regulation (EU) 2022/2560). The guidelines codify a four-pillar analytical framework — distortion assessment, public-procurement distortion test, balancing test, and ex officio call-in scope — that DG COMP will apply in every future FSR enforcement proceeding. As the operational blueprint for the FSR regime, the guidelines materially shape Chinese SOE and Gulf SWF EU-market access planning for concentrations, public-procurement tenders, and sub-threshold transactions.

Malaysia's Ministry of Finance gazetted P.U. (A) 9/2026, the Customs (Prohibition of Imports) (Amendment) Order 2026, on 9 January 2026, taking effect 15 January 2026. The order adds 1-boc-4-piperidone and P-2-P methyl glycidic acid (BMK glycidic acid) — together with its methyl, ethyl, propyl, isopropyl, butyl, isobutyl, sec-butyl and tert-butyl esters — to the Second Schedule of the Customs (Prohibition of Imports) Order 2017, requiring an approved permit before import. Global Trade Alert lists China, Japan and South Korea among the trade partners affected by the new licensing gate.