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

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. signed Administrative Order No. 31 s. 2025 on 28 March 2025, establishing the Semiconductor and Electronics Industry Advisory Council (SEIAC) as the President's primary advisory body on semiconductor and electronics industry development, promotion, and competitiveness. The SEIAC is chaired by the Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs, with the DTI Secretary as Vice-Chair, and mandates the Council to provide strategic guidance for implementing the Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Industry (PSEI) Roadmap, coordinate inter-agency interventions across the value chain, and recommend legislative measures for sectoral competitiveness.

The US Bureau of Industry and Security amended the Export Administration Regulations to add 12 entities to the Entity List under the destinations of China (11) and Taiwan (1) via Final Rule 2025-05427 (90 FR 14046), companion to the larger 70-entity rule (2025-05426) published the same day. Targets fall in three clusters: (i) Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and Beijing Innovation Wisdom Technology — added for acquiring US-origin items in support of China's military modernization, specifically developing large AI models and advanced computing chips for defense; (ii) the Inspur group — Inspur (Beijing) Electronic Information Industry, Inspur Electronic Information Industry, Inspur Electronic Information (Hong Kong), Inspur (HK) Electronics, Inspur Software, and Inspur Taiwan — added as subsidiaries contributing to supercomputers for military end use; and (iii) Henan Dingxin, Nettrix Information Industry, Suma Technology, and Suma-USI Electronics — added for involvement in the development of Chinese exascale supercomputers. License requirements are for all items subject to the EAR; review policy is presumption of denial for the AI cluster and policy of denial for the supercomputer clusters.

In its first major export-regulatory action of the second Trump administration, BIS amended the EAR to add 70 entities to the Entity List under the destinations of China (42), Iran (2), Pakistan (19), South Africa (3), and the United Arab Emirates (4), and modified four existing entries (France, Iran, Senegal, UK). New listings carry a license requirement for all items subject to the EAR with a presumption-of-denial review policy and no license exceptions available. Stated objectives include restricting China's acquisition of high-performance computing and quantum technologies for military use, impeding hypersonic-weapons development, disrupting Iran's UAV and defense procurement, and impairing Pakistan's unsafeguarded nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. The rule also targets the Test Flying Academy of South Africa for using U.S.-origin items to train Chinese military pilots.

On 27 February 2025, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted Law No. 33/2025 amending Law No. 174/2021 on the mechanism for examining investments of importance for state security. The law entered into force on 20 April 2025 after publication in Monitorul Oficial Nr. 144-147 of 20 March 2025 (promulgated by Presidential Decree No. 118-X of 17 March 2025). Key operative changes expand the protected-sector perimeter to explicitly enumerate 17 categories covering data processing and storage, AI, robotics, cybersecurity, semiconductors, quantum, nanotechnology and biotechnology alongside the pre-existing energy, transport, communications, defence and aerospace pillars; add new grounds for refusal (money-laundering suspicion, corruption convictions, foreign-government control, cybersecurity risk, access to personal data of citizens); introduce enhanced Council powers including retroactive review of previously approved investments and fines of up to 5% of annual turnover (capped at MDL 5 million); and carve out intra-group transactions, asset sales below EUR 1 million, and state-owned-enterprise dealings. The Screening Council became operational in July 2025.

On 24 February 2025 President Prabowo Subianto launched Badan Pengelola Investasi Daya Anagata Nusantara (Danantara), Indonesia's new state investment-management agency, consolidating around USD 900bn–1tn of Indonesian state-owned-enterprise assets — including Pertamina, PLN, Bank Mandiri, BRI, BNI, Telkom, MIND ID, Antam and Inalum — into a single super-holding modelled on Singapore's Temasek. Danantara was created by the Third Amendment to the BUMN Law (Law No. 1 of 2025, enacted 24 February 2025) and Government Regulation No. 10 of 2025 on its organisation and governance, with board appointments formalised by Presidential Regulation No. 30 of 2025. The agency reports directly to the President, bypassing the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises, and is mandated to deploy SOE balance-sheet capacity into Prabowo's 8% growth target via co-investment in mineral downstreaming, refinery and EV-battery build-out, food security, and semiconductor / data-centre infrastructure.

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy issued the 36th amendment to the Public Notice on Export and Import of Strategic Items (전략물자수출입고시) as MOTIE Notice No. 2025-20, with promulgation on 24 February 2025 and effect from 28 February 2025. The amendment adds 21 advanced-technology items and technologies — including quantum computers, AI-class semiconductors, 3D-printing equipment, isotopes for quantum computing, ultra-low-temperature measurement equipment, and high-temperature coatings — to the Strategic Items List, implementing recent updates from the Wassenaar Arrangement, Nuclear Suppliers Group, Missile Technology Control Regime, and Australia Group multilateral export-control regimes. The same amendment introduces a humanitarian-medical-device carve-out for exports of diagnostic X-ray and radiographic imaging equipment to Russia, simplifies end-user verification (intermediaries deemed final end-user where verification is "extremely difficult"), extends the post-transaction reporting period from 7 days to 3 months, creates a self-disclosure system for non-compliance, and allows one-time extensions of individual export licences beyond original validity.

On 19 February 2025 Vietnam's 15th National Assembly adopted Resolution 193/2025/QH15 at its 9th Extraordinary Session, establishing 12 pilot policy categories that operationalise the Politburo's December 2024 Resolution 57-NQ/TW without requiring full-statute enactment. The resolution's most structurally novel element is an R&D risk-acceptance framework — the first in Southeast Asia — that exempts organisations and individuals from civil liability for damage caused to the State in the course of state-funded R&D activities conducted in compliance with prescribed procedures, directly addressing Vietnam's long-standing chilling effect on state-sector innovation. Additional pilots cover expedited procurement for sci-tech and digital-transformation projects, special tax and immigration incentives for high-skilled AI/semiconductor/ quantum R&D personnel, accelerated permitting pathways for priority-sector R&D investments, a start-up grant and venture framework, and an open-data regime for state-held datasets. Implementing Decree 88/2025/ND-CP was issued shortly after adoption; the resolution provides the legal-framework architecture that complements the financial-instrument side (Decree 182/2024/ND-CP, VND 30 trillion Investment Support Fund) and the sectoral-law cluster enacted in late 2025.

South Korea's National Assembly passed the Special Act on the Expansion of the National Electricity Network (Law No. 20844) on 19 February 2025 as part of the bipartisan "Energy Trifecta Bill," with promulgation on 25 March 2025 and entry into force on 26 September 2025. The act creates an expedited siting, permitting, and compensation framework for trunk transmission-grid construction, consolidating 35 previously separate regulatory approvals into a single streamlined procedure and targeting a >30% reduction in grid-build timelines. It directly addresses the electricity-infrastructure bottleneck constraining semiconductor fab clusters (Yongin, Pyeongtaek, SK Hynix HBM), sovereign AI datacenter build-out, and EV/battery gigafactory load growth — structurally distinct from the K-Chips Act (fiscal incentives) and the Semiconductor Special Act (regulatory framework), as it unblocks the physical power-delivery constraint those programmes depend on.

BIS published a correcting amendment to its January 16, 2025 interim final rule "Implementation of Additional Due Diligence Measures for Advanced Computing Integrated Circuits" (FR Doc 2025-00711). The correction revises the license-requirement table for ECCN 3A090 by changing the first row, first column from "RS applies to the entire entry, except 3A090.a" to "RS applies to 3A090.a", aligning the Regional Stability control scope with BIS's intended policy in the Advanced Computing Chip rules. Effective February 11, 2025; comments due March 14, 2025. Docket BIS-2024-0055; RIN 0694-AJ98.

The Government of Karnataka, Department of Industries and Commerce, notified the Karnataka Industrial Policy 2025-30 in the Karnataka Gazette on 11 February 2025, with the policy taking legal effect from 8 February 2025 and valid for five years (or until superseded). It supersedes the prior Karnataka Industrial Policy 2020-25. The umbrella state-level framework targets ₹7.5 lakh crore (~USD 90 bn) in fresh investment and 20 lakh (2 million) new jobs by 2030, positioning Karnataka as a top-Asia destination for high-technology manufacturing — semiconductors, EVs, aerospace, defence, biotech, medical devices, textiles and renewable energy. It introduces zone-based incentive categorisation (Zone 1/2/3 district classification), capital subsidies, stamp-duty exemption, electricity-tax exemption, interest subsidy, ESDM-specific top-up incentives that layer onto central PLI/ECMS/Semicon Mission schemes, and a Cabinet Sub-Committee under the Chief Minister to sanction bespoke "Anchor Investor" and "Mega/Ultra-Mega" customised incentive packages.

Poland's Ministry of Digital Affairs published the final "Polska w grze o przyszłość — polityka dla sektora półprzewodników 2025+" (Poland in the Game for the Future — Semiconductor Sector Policy 2025+) in mid-June 2025 following public consultations (6 February – 4 March 2025, 38 entities, 356 proposals reviewed). The seven-pillar national strategic framework targets 2–3 large industrial semiconductor investments by 2030 with added value €300–600 M each, focused on back-end production (assembly, test, packaging) and materials. Three specialised semiconductor parks are proposed: Mazovia (chip design), Lower Silesia (materials manufacturing), and Pomerania (sensor technologies). The policy operationalises Poland's positioning as a back-end semiconductor destination and materials-supply hub within the EU Chips Act ecosystem, sitting inside the broader "National Framework for Supporting Strategic Semiconductor Investments" programme (>PLN 7 bn through 2026, adopted December 2023).

South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) committed in its 2025 Work Plan to establish a National AI Computing Center via public-private partnership (PPP), with an anchor envelope of KRW 2 trillion rising to KRW 4 trillion through 2030. In July 2025 MSIT executed the first major tranche: KRW 1.46 trillion (approx. USD 1.1 billion) to procure approximately 13,000 high-performance GPUs (NVIDIA B200 and H200) distributed across three domestic cloud operators — Naver Cloud, NHN Cloud, and Kakao. This is Korea's first PPP-structured sovereign-AI compute procurement instrument, structurally distinct from the AI Basic Act (horizontal regulatory framework) and the Semiconductor Special Act (fab investment incentives), as it directly addresses the compute- infrastructure supply constraint for AI model training and national AI research.

MOFCOM and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued Announcement No. 10 [2025] on 4 February 2025, imposing dual-use export-licence controls on items related to tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium under the Export Control Law and Dual-Use Items Export Control Regulations. The controls cover metals, alloys, powders, compounds and related processing technologies across roughly 25 listed item categories (41 HS 10-digit codes). The measure is global in scope but was issued the same day China announced 10-15% retaliatory tariffs on US LNG, coal, crude and farm equipment in response to the Trump administration's 10% fentanyl-tariff hike — extending the MOFCOM critical-minerals control regime beyond gallium/germanium/graphite/antimony/heavy-REEs.

On 1 February 2025, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the National Manufacturing Mission (NMM) in the Union Budget 2025-26 as a horizontal umbrella framework extending the 2014 "Make in India" architecture across small, medium and large industries. The mission rests on five focal areas: (i) ease and cost of doing business; (ii) a future-ready workforce for in-demand jobs; (iii) a vibrant and dynamic MSME sector; (iv) availability of technology; and (v) quality manufacturing. It will deliver policy support, execution roadmaps, and a governance/monitoring framework binding central ministries with states. NMM specifically commits to building a clean-tech manufacturing ecosystem with explicit coverage of solar PV cells, EV batteries, motors and controllers, electrolysers, wind turbines, very-high-voltage transmission equipment, and grid-scale batteries — i.e., the full hardware stack for India's Panchamrit (500 GW non-fossil by 2030), FAME-III EV ramp, and National Green Hydrogen Mission. NMM is the first horizontal Indian manufacturing-mission instrument in the IPTM register; existing IND entries are sector-specific PLIs (electronics, batteries, steel, semiconductors) and the National Critical Mineral Mission. Operational rollout flows through subsequent Cabinet-level scheme approvals (e.g. Biopharma SHAKTI ₹10,000 cr, Chemical Parks ₹600 cr in BE 2026-27); the mission itself does not carry a single headline outlay because it is the framework rather than an instrument.

On 29 January 2025 the Union Cabinet of India approved the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM), a seven-year programme running FY2024-25 through FY2030-31 with a headline financial envelope of ₹34,300 crore (≈USD 4.0 bn). The structure is split: ₹16,300 crore of direct government outlay administered by the Ministry of Mines, plus an expected ₹18,000 crore of investment by central public-sector undertakings (PSUs) and other stakeholders. The mission was first announced by the Finance Minister in the Union Budget 2024-25 (23 July 2024) and the Cabinet approval gave it formal sanction. The NCMM covers the full critical-minerals value chain: domestic exploration, mining, beneficiation, processing, recycling from end-of-life products, and acquisition of overseas mineral assets. The Geological Survey of India (GSI) is tasked with executing 1,200 exploration projects over the seven-year window (vs. 368 projects over the prior three years), expanded to offshore polymetallic-nodule provinces containing cobalt, REE, nickel and manganese. More than 100 critical-mineral blocks are slated for auction. Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL) — the JV of NALCO, HCL and MECL — is the designated vehicle for overseas acquisitions, with active Argentina lithium (CAMYEN SE, 15,703 ha) and Australia lithium/cobalt off-take pipelines. India's official critical-minerals list contains 30 commodities, of which 24 are inscribed in Part D of Schedule I of the MMDR Act 1957 (after the 2023 amendment), reserving central-government auction authority over them. The NCMM sets an explicit recycling target of 15-20% of domestic critical-mineral demand met from secondary sources (e-waste, battery scrap, industrial waste) by 2035. The mission also funds a National Centre of Excellence for Critical Minerals and offers customs-duty waivers on 25 critical minerals (announced in the same FY24-25 budget) to lower import costs while domestic capacity scales. NCMM is India's pull-side complement to the US IRA, EU Critical Raw Materials Act, Canada Critical Minerals Strategy and Australia Critical Minerals Strategy — a coordinated allied response to Chinese dominance over refined cobalt, REE, graphite and gallium/germanium. For India specifically it is framed as the supply-chain underpinning for FAME-III (EV adoption), the Semicon India programme (gallium/germanium/silicon), and the National Solar Mission (silicon, indium, tellurium, gallium for thin-film PV).

President Trump signed Executive Order 14179 on 23 January 2025 (published in the Federal Register on 31 January 2025 as 90 FR 8741, doc 2025-02172). The order revokes Biden-era Executive Order 14110 of 30 October 2023 ("Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence") and directs federal agencies to identify and rescind, revise, or suspend any policies, regulations, memoranda, or guidance documents adopted pursuant to the revoked Biden order. It mandates that the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy develop an AI Action Plan within 180 days to "sustain and enhance America's global AI dominance." The plan was released on 23 July 2025. EO 14179 reframes US AI industrial-policy posture from safety-first regulation to deregulation, infrastructure investment, and export-competitiveness.

BIS published an interim final rule (FR Doc 2025-00711, 90 FR 4544-publication slot; companion to the AI Diffusion Framework signed three days earlier) revising the EAR to add explicit due-diligence procedures for advanced computing integrated circuits captured by ECCN 3A090. The rule (i) creates an Authorized IC Designer / Approved IC Packager regime so that foundries and OSATs can identify trustworthy customers via lists maintained by BIS, (ii) imposes new front-end-fabricator reporting requirements for any 3A090.a IC produced for an authorized IC designer to give the US government supply-chain visibility, and (iii) adjusts the scope of covered advanced-computing items. Effective 16 January 2025; compliance required from 31 January 2025; comment period extended to 14 March 2025. The rule was immediately followed by the 16 January Entity List additions (Sophgo et al.) targeting circumvention paths and was technically amended on 14 February 2025 to narrow the RS license requirement to ECCN 3A090.a only.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding 16 entities to the Entity List under the destinations of China (14) and Singapore (2). The additions concentrate on the Sophgo Technologies cluster and a set of affiliated PRC fabless / system houses (Suanze, Suanxin, Suanhu, Suanli, Suanneng, Sophon, Quliang, Shunhua) plus two Singapore entities (Sophgo Technologies Pte. Ltd., PowerAir Pte. Ltd.) acting as offshore extensions of the same group. BIS cites involvement in "supporting or directly contributing to the development of advanced computing integrated circuits" that further PRC advanced-weapons, WMD, and high-tech surveillance programs. License requirement covers all items subject to the EAR with a presumption-of-denial review policy. The rule was effective on publication, January 16, 2025.

Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/63 of 15 January 2025, published in the Official Journal on 16 January 2025 (CELEX 32025H0063), is the first EU-level instrument operationalising outbound-investment screening. It is a legally non-binding act that asks Member States to designate a Single Contact Point and competent national authorities by 15 March 2025 and to review outbound transactions by EU investors into third countries in three strategic sectors — advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies — covering acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, greenfield investments, asset/IP transfers, and venture-capital instruments completed since 1 January 2021. Member States must submit an interim update by 15 July 2025 and a comprehensive report on review outcomes and identified risks by 30 June 2026, feeding into the EU's broader Economic Security Strategy and the binding outbound-investment legislative instrument the Commission has signalled for 2026-2027.

The Netherlands extended its national export-control measure under the Besluit Strategische Goederen to a new equipment class: specific optical and e-beam measuring and inspection systems used in advanced semiconductor production (capable of detecting defects at 21 nm and below). A national licence issued by the Dutch government (CDIU / BUZA / EZ joint approval) is now required for exports to all destinations outside the EU. The measure was announced by Minister Klever in the Government Gazette on 15 January 2025 and took effect 1 April 2025, directly affecting ASML's Hermes Microvision (HMI) subsidiary and ASM International (ASMI).

The UK government published the AI Opportunities Action Plan (CP 1241) on 13 January 2025, authored by Matt Clifford CBE (Chair, ARIA), and simultaneously accepted all 50 recommendations via the government response (CP 1242). The plan establishes binding cross-government commitments including a 20× expansion of UK sovereign AI compute capacity by 2030, designation of AI Growth Zones (Culham, Oxfordshire named first), a National Data Library, and energy-grid prioritisation for AI datacentres. It positions AI compute as critical national infrastructure and represents the most comprehensive national AI industrial-policy roadmap published in the UK to date.

The Bureau of Industry and Security signed an Interim Final Rule on 13 January 2025 (90 FR 4544, published 15 January 2025) introducing the first horizontal export-control regime for advanced AI compute and closed-weight model weights. It revised ECCN 3A090 advanced-IC thresholds, created a new ECCN 4E091 covering closed-weight model weights trained on more than 10^26 operations, and bucketed every destination worldwide into a three-tier country group: Tier 1 (~18 close allies, license-free flows), Tier 2 (the rest of the world, per-country compute caps with National VEU and Universal VEU pathways), Tier 3 (US arms-embargoed destinations including China and Russia under comprehensive denial). It added license exceptions AIA, ACM, and LPP and set staggered compliance dates of 15 May 2025 (general) and 15 January 2026 (data-center / model-weight provisions). The Trump administration's BIS rescinded the rule on 13 May 2025 — two days before the primary compliance date — but it was on the books for four months and shaped allied compliance build-out and the architecture of subsequent US AI export controls.

On 21 January 2025, Mexico published the Decree granting tax incentives in support of the national strategy known as "Plan Mexico" in the Diario Oficial de la Federación (DOF). The decree provides MXN 30 billion (~USD 1.5 billion) in fiscal incentives through 2030 to attract nearshoring investment, with MXN 28.5 billion allocated to immediate deductions on new fixed asset investments and MXN 1.5 billion for workforce training and innovation. Deduction rates range from 35% to 91% depending on asset type and sector, with the automotive, aerospace, and semiconductor industries expected to benefit most. The measure aims to capitalize on US-China decoupling by positioning Mexico as an alternative manufacturing base for supply chains serving the North American market.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding 13 entities under 13 entries to the Entity List, listed under the destinations of Burma (1), China (11), and Pakistan (1). The PRC additions concentrate on the optics/photonics, RF/microwave, and military-civil-fusion research-institute layer of China's military-modernization stack — including CAS Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP), Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM), Peng Cheng Laboratory, Ji Hua Laboratory, and the Yaguang/Chengdu RML defense-electronics cluster — with explicit references to support for hypersonic-weapons development. The Burma entity is Telecom International Myanmar (Mytel), added for providing surveillance services and financial support to the post-coup military regime; the Pakistan entity (Emerging Future Solutions Pvt Ltd) was added for contributions to Pakistan's ballistic-missile programme. All 13 entries carry a license requirement for all items subject to the EAR with a presumption-of-denial review policy and no license exceptions. The rule was effective on publication, January 6, 2025, with a savings clause through February 5, 2025 for goods already en route.