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

Minister of Trade Regulation No. 5 of 2026, signed on 26 March 2026 and effective 1 April 2026, is the fourth amendment to Permendag 23/2023 on Export Policy and Regulation. It introduces three substantively significant changes: (i) restricts issuance of Export Approval (Persetujuan Ekspor / PE) for ilmenite and rutile concentrate to holders of IUP/IUPK Operasi Produksi mining permits — eliminating the prior Izin Usaha Industri (IUI) industrial pathway — extending Indonesia's hilirisasi vertical-integration doctrine to titanium feedstock; (ii) removes the Eksportir Terdaftar (ET) registered- exporter requirement for industrial tin exports, simplifying the export chain to PE + Laporan Surveyor (LS) only; (iii) mandates electronic and automatic issuance of PE where the integrated INATRADE/SINSW system documentation is complete, digitising the export-licensing chain. Additional changes tighten kratom ET validity to a three-year cap and reassign marine-species transport- document authority from the Ministry of Forestry to the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries.

Brazil's Comitê-Executivo de Gestão da Câmara de Comércio Exterior (Gecex/Camex) approved Resolução Gecex Nº 876 on 13 April 2026 (DOU 14/04/2026), applying a definitive five-year antidumping duty on imports of polyethylene (PE) resins — NCM 3901.10.30, 3901.20.29, and 3901.40.00 — originating from the United States and Canada. The DECOM investigation, initiated on 14 November 2024 following a Braskem S.A. petition, found positive dumping margins and material injury to the domestic PE-resin industry; provisional duties were imposed under Resolução Gecex Nº 777 (28 August 2025) for six months. Gecex modulated the definitive rates to match provisional-period levels as a public-interest adjustment to limit additional cost pass-through to downstream packaging, agricultural-film, and container manufacturers.

Presidential Decree No. 193, signed by President Vladimir Putin on 25 March 2026 and in force from 1 May 2026, prohibits the export from Russia of refined gold bars (аффинированное золото в слитках) with a total weight exceeding 100 grams by individuals, legal entities, and individual entrepreneurs. Narrow exceptions apply for EAEU-destination and non-EAEU-destination movements through designated international airports (Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, and Knevichi/Vladivostok) conditional on Federal Assay Office or Federal Border Service permits. The stated rationale — curbing shadow-economy use of bullion as a foreign-currency substitute and closing capital-flight channels — is analytically inseparable from the broader post-2022 Russia counter-sanctions context and the G7 / LBMA delisting of Russian-origin gold.

On 24 March 2026 Mexico's Supreme Court (SCJN), sitting in full Pleno session, unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the 2022 lithium nationalisation law (Decreto reforming the Mining Law and creating LitioMx) when resolving Acción de Inconstitucionalidad 78/2022 brought by a Senate minority (33 % of senators). The court affirmed Articles 1, 5 bis, and 10 of the Mining Law — which reserve all lithium exploration, exploitation, processing, and commercialisation exclusively to the State via the LitioMx decentralised public body and prohibit private concessions entirely — are constitutional, provided implementation follows established procedures requiring technical support and Mexican Geological Service validation. The ruling closes the last formal constitutional challenge to Mexico's state-monopoly lithium regime, confirming a permanent exclusion of private capital from the full lithium value chain.

The Government of Tanzania signed a Development Agreement with Panda Hill Tanzania Limited (a subsidiary of US-based Denham Capital / Tremont Investments) on 24 March 2026 in Mbeya to develop the Panda Hill niobium and ferroniobium project in the Mbeya/Songwe region. Under the agreement, the Government holds a 16% non-dilutable free carried interest in the project special-purpose vehicle, with Panda Hill Tanzania Limited committing to an initial capital investment of USD 442 million to construct Tanzania's first niobium mine and ferroniobium smelting plant — the first ferroniobium processing facility in Africa. At full production, the project is expected to supply approximately 4–5% of global niobium demand, generating USD 686 million in lifetime government revenues (royalties, taxes, and 16% equity dividends), positioning Tanzania among the world's top-four niobium producers alongside Brazil's CBMM, Canada's Niobec, and China Molybdenum.

The Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Industry (PSEI) Roadmap 2026–2030 was presented at the 4th SEIAC meeting at Malacañang on 23 March 2026 by BOI Executive Director Ma. Corazon Halili-Dichosa and formally rolled out by DTI in April 2026. The Roadmap targets $110 billion in annual exports by 2030 ($70B semiconductors + $40B electronics, approximately doubling the current ~$50B baseline) via value-chain ascent from assembly-test-packaging through IC design toward front-end wafer fabrication, supported by 128,000-worker upskilling over five years and up to three national laboratories in fabrication, R&D, and talent development.

Peru's Congress enacted Ley N° 32560 on 22 March 2026, establishing the country's first legal framework for nuclear electricity generation and the deployment of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). The law tasks MINEM, MINAM, and the Peruvian Institute of Nuclear Energy (IPEN) with jointly assessing SMR viability across Peruvian departments, explicitly aiming to use domestic uranium resources as feedstock. Private investment in nuclear power is permitted under a free-competition regime, with mandatory National Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA) review and citizen participation required at all project phases.

South Africa's ITAC, acting on an application by ArcelorMittal South Africa and Columbus Stainless Steel, imposed definitive five-year anti-dumping duties on certain flat-rolled products of iron and steel (width ≥600 mm, HS 7208 and 7225 subheadings) from China (company-specific rates up to 47.92%), Japan (up to 57.23%) and Taiwan (24.20%), effective 19 March 2026 via SARS amendment to Schedule No. 2 of the Customs and Excise Act. The Commission found dumping from all three origins and material injury to the SACU regional industry (full findings in ITAC Report 767). Duties are layered on top of the existing 10% ordinary customs duty and 13% steel safeguard, substantially raising the landed cost of flat-rolled steel from Asia.

The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) initiated an anti-dumping investigation on 20 March 2026 into imports of Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) originating in or exported from China PR and Russia (Initiation Notification No. 6/9/2026-DGTR), exercising powers under Rule 5 of the Anti-Dumping Rules 1995 and Sections 9A–9C of the Customs Tariff Act 1975. The investigation covers PTFE in all commercial forms — granular moulding powder, fine powder, and aqueous dispersion — under HS 3904.61, with the period of investigation (POI) set as April 2024 to September 2025 (18 months) and the injury investigation period spanning 2021-22 through the POI. The investigation was filed by Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL) and other Indian domestic fluoropolymer producers alleging material injury from dumped imports; Russia's scope is unusual for India DGTR and constitutes the first formal trade-remedy reading of Russia's PTFE export pricing.

On 20 March 2026, METI/MOFA (Japan) and the US Departments of State and Energy jointly published the "Japan–United States Critical Minerals Project Cooperation Joint Fact Sheet," identifying five specific upstream critical-mineral projects spanning four continents (Australia, Tanzania, Brazil, UAE, Namibia) to receive structured joint financing through JOGMEC equity and offtake instruments and US DFC/Ex-Im Bank facilities. The document operationalises the October 2025 US-Japan Critical Minerals Framework and the same-day Action Plan, converting policy-framework language into named project commitments covering nickel, lithium, battery-anode graphite, and heavy rare earths. It was released the day following the Takaichi–Trump summit on 19 March 2026 and follows the Critical Minerals Investment Ministerial convened in Tokyo on 14 March 2026.

Peru's Mining Council (Consejo de Minería) issued Resolution No. 236-2026-MINEM/CM on 19 March 2026, declaring null and void Directoral Resolution No. 0692-2025-MINEM/DGM of 13 October 2025, which had authorised Southern Peru Copper Corporation (SPCC, NYSE: SCCO; subsidiary of Grupo México) to begin exploitation activities at the Tía María copper project in Islay province, Arequipa. The council found the original DGM authorisation lacked adequate legal motivation and failed to address two technical observations relating to waste-dump infrastructure design and construction-sequencing plans, as required under the Regulation of Mining Procedures and the consolidated text of the Administrative Procedures Act (Law 27444). The resolution returned the file to the General Directorate of Mining (DGM) for technical re-evaluation, without terminating the project's administrative procedure; MINEM subsequently re-authorised the project's first-stage La Tapada open-pit operations on approximately 20 April 2026 after a revised technical assessment.

South Africa's International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) recommended, and SARS implemented on 19 March 2026, definitive five-year anti-dumping duties on U, I and H sections of iron or non-alloy steel (structural steel, HS 7216.31, 7216.32, 7216.33 and 7216.40) imported from China (74.98%) and Thailand (20.32%). The investigation, initiated on an application by ArcelorMittal Rails and Structures (AMRAS), found dumped imports — totalling 28,800 tonnes in 2023/24, with China supplying ~65% — were causing material injury to the SACU domestic industry (full findings in ITAC Report 759). The definitive duties layer on top of an existing 10% ordinary customs duty and a 13% SACU-wide steel safeguard duty, bringing the effective total import burden on Chinese structural steel to approximately 98% above the base tariff.

On 19 March 2026 the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, imposed a £390,000 monetary penalty on Apple Distribution International Limited (ADI), the Ireland-incorporated subsidiary of Apple Inc. The penalty relates to two payments totalling approximately £635,000 made in 2022 to Okko LLC, a sanctioned Russian app developer, for App Store revenue. ADI's failure to cancel the payments amounted to conduct in the UK that breached regulation 12 of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which prohibits making funds available to a person owned or controlled by a designated person. The enforcement is notable as the **first use of OFSI's new settlement mechanism** (introduced February 2026), which allows OFSI and a subject of an enforcement action to resolve a civil monetary penalty case via time-bound negotiation. OFSI applied a 35% discount to the £600,000 baseline penalty to reach the £390,000 final figure, reflecting ADI's voluntary self-disclosure (made 4 October 2022) and cooperation.

India's Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the Bharat Audyogik Vikas Yojna (BHAVYA) on 18 March 2026 with a ₹33,660 crore (~USD 4.0bn) outlay over six years (FY 2026-27 to FY 2031-32) to develop 100 plug-and-play industrial parks of 100-1,000 acres each across all states and Union Territories. Financial assistance of up to ₹1 crore per acre supports core infrastructure (internal roads, underground utilities, drainage, common treatment, ICT), value-added infrastructure (ready-built sheds, built-to-suit units, testing labs, warehousing), and social infrastructure (worker housing). The scheme is sector-agnostic and is implemented by the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (NICDC) under DPIIT, with states forming Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and committing to single-window clearances. The first phase will deliver 50 parks.

India's DGTR issued final findings on 18 March 2026 recommending anti-dumping duties on cryogenic Liquefied Natural Gas Fuel Tanks (LFT) originating in or exported from China PR, after determining that Chinese-origin LFTs were being sold in India at dumped prices causing material injury to domestic manufacturers. The investigation was initiated in December 2024 following a petition by Inox India Ltd. The DGTR found price undercutting and suppression of domestic prices, with the Finance Ministry to issue the implementing customs notification.

The UK Finance Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 18 March 2026, establishes the primary statutory framework for the United Kingdom Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (UK CBAM), granting HM Revenue & Customs the assessment, collection, and enforcement powers needed to apply a carbon-content levy on imports of aluminium, cement, fertilisers, hydrogen, and iron & steel from 1 January 2027. Two tranches of draft secondary legislation (the CBAM Regulations 2026 covering administration, rate calculation/carbon-price relief, emissions and verification, and transitory provisions) were published for technical consultation on 10 February 2026 (closing 24 March 2026) and again in Spring 2026 (closing 21 May 2026). The mechanism imposes a UK ETS-linked benchmark price on the embedded carbon of in-scope imports, with a credit for verified third-country carbon prices already paid, and — unlike the EU CBAM — has no transitional reporting phase and a narrower initial sectoral scope (no electricity).

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on 17 March 2026 that TradeStation Securities, Inc. agreed to pay $1,110,661 to settle 481 apparent violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 560), the Syrian Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 542), and the Ukraine-/Russia-Related Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 589) that occurred between 21 June 2021 and 15 June 2022. The violations arose from a mobile-platform software update that inadvertently caused the firm's second-tier geo-blocking to screen the IP address of a U.S.-located server rather than the user's IP, allowing customers in Iran, Syria, and Crimea to execute securities-related transactions. OFAC determined the apparent violations were non-egregious and voluntarily self-disclosed, resulting in a significantly reduced settlement amount.

The Mongolian Government prepared and submitted to parliament a two-track legislative package: (i) a standalone Law on Supporting Critical Minerals Projects, sponsored by MP B. Uyanga, that creates a formal Cabinet-administered list of critical minerals, simplifies and fast-tracks exploration-licence procedures for designated critical-mineral deposits, and mandates that no less than 60% of total benefits from those deposits flow to the public via the National Wealth Fund (Win-Win principle); and (ii) companion Cabinet-approved amendments to the parent Minerals Law introducing the same critical-mineral definition, a dual-track licensing system (first-come-first-served plus tenders), and escalating fees on inactive licences to deter speculative hoarding. The package was formally on the agenda of the 2026 Spring Session of the State Great Khural (commenced 16 March 2026); as of May 2026 the bills remain in parliamentary review pending enactment.

India's Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) issued Press Note 2 of 2026 on March 15, 2026 (following Cabinet approval on March 10, 2026), recalibrating the Press Note 3 (2020) FDI framework for investments from countries sharing a land border with India. Global investors with up to 10% non-controlling Chinese (or other land-border) shareholding can now invest in India under the automatic route across sectors, while entities domiciled in China, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Afghanistan continue to require prior government approval. For 40 designated strategic sub-sectors — including rare earth permanent magnets, polysilicon and ingot-wafer manufacturing, printed circuit boards, electronic capital goods, Li-ion batteries and machine tools — proposals will be decided within a binding 60-day window, with majority Indian ownership and control mandated at all times. Effective from the date of the corresponding amendment to the FEMA Non-Debt Instruments Rules.

South Korea's 13th National Strategic Technology Special Committee (chaired by MSIT) adopted the 2026 Annual Implementation Plan for the First Basic Plan for National Strategic Technology Development (2024–2028), committing KRW 8.6 trillion in 2026 R&D investment — a ~30% YoY increase from KRW 6.5 trillion in 2025 — across 19 NEXT strategic-technology fields encompassing AI, semiconductors, quantum, displays, and secondary batteries, coordinated across 23 ministries. The plan is supplemented by KRW 46.6 trillion in policy finance delivered through Korea Development Bank (KDB), Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KCGF), and Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KOTEC), providing the horizontal funding-coordination architecture that operationalises all sector-specific Korean strategic-technology legislative instruments.

On 13 March 2026 USTR Jamieson Greer and Ecuador's Minister of Production, Foreign Trade and Investment Luis Alberto Jaramillo signed the United States–Ecuador Agreement on Reciprocal Trade in Washington, formalising the framework agreed in November 2025. Ecuador commits to preferential treatment for >90% of its agricultural schedule (including tariff elimination on soybeans, fresh/processed fruit, alcoholic beverages, tea, tree/ground nuts, dairy, beef, pork and poultry), to discontinue applying the Andean Price Band System to US-origin agricultural goods, to accept US remanufactured goods and US motor-vehicle safety/emissions standards, and to commit on digital-trade non-discrimination plus the multilateral moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. The US in return grants MFN tariff treatment to qualifying Ecuadorian goods that "cannot be grown, mined, or naturally produced" in the US, by 1 August 2026 or entry into force (whichever is later). The Agreement enters into force 30 days after both parties notify completion of domestic procedures.

Brazil's Secretariat of Foreign Trade (SECEX) opened a formal antidumping investigation via Circular nº 18 (12 March 2026) into imports of machined graphite electrodes (NCM 8545.11.00, diameter ≥ 350 mm) from China and India, following a petition by GrafTech Brasil Participações Ltda (subsidiary of NYSE-listed GrafTech International / EAF). DECOM's preliminary assessment found indicative dumping margins of 54.9% for Chinese-origin and 57.3% for Indian-origin electrodes. The investigation covers assembled and unassembled electrodes used in electric-arc-furnace steelmaking, ferroalloy smelting, and metal-oxide reduction. A definitive antidumping duty of up to five years may result if DECOM confirms material injury and issues a positive final determination.

On 12 March 2026 the UK Cabinet Office (Investment Security Unit) published its Government Response to the consultation on reform of the Notifiable Acquisition Regulations (NARs) under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 — the first major substantive overhaul of the NSI mandatory-notification schedules since the regime took effect on 4 January 2022. The reform splits Critical Minerals out of the existing Advanced Materials schedule into a standalone mandatory schedule covering all 34 minerals on the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre's latest criticality assessment; splits Semiconductors into its own standalone schedule (capturing advanced packaging and specific chip-design processes); creates a brand-new Water sector schedule covering the 17 regional water and sewerage undertakers in England and Wales; refocuses Artificial Intelligence on entities that create or materially modify AI systems (excluding routine end-use); and refines Communications, Critical Suppliers to Government, Data Infrastructure, Energy and Suppliers to Emergency Services to reduce low-risk capture. An implementing Statutory Instrument is expected later in 2026; the existing NARs remain in force until that SI takes effect.

On 11 March 2026 USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer initiated parallel Section 301 investigations into the acts, policies, and practices of 16 economies — China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan, and India — relating to structural excess capacity and overproduction in manufacturing sectors. The Federal Register notice (FR doc 2026-05214; dockets USTR-2026-0067 and USTR-2026-0068) was published on 17 March 2026. Covered sectors include aluminum, automobiles, batteries, cement, chemicals, electronics, energy goods, glass, machine tools, machinery, paper, plastics, processed food and beverages, robotics, satellites, semiconductors, ships, solar modules, steel, and transportation equipment. Written comments were due by 15 April 2026; USTR held the public hearing beginning 5 May 2026. This is the most sweeping multi-economy Section 301 initiative since the 2018 China investigation and is structurally distinct from the China-only 2024-05-14 §301 tariff hikes and the 2025-07-15 Brazil §301 investigation.

FinCEN issued an expanded Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) requiring money services businesses (MSBs) located in designated counties and ZIP codes across Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to file Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) on cash transactions between $1,000 and $10,000 — well below the standard $10,000 CTR threshold. The order took effect March 7, 2026 and runs through September 2, 2026; the FR notice (FR Doc. 2026-04641) was published March 10, 2026. The expansion adds Bernalillo, Doña Ana, and San Juan Counties in New Mexico and Maricopa and Pima Counties in Arizona to the geography covered by the prior September 10, 2025 GTO. Compliance date for newly-covered MSBs is April 6, 2026; reports must be filed within 30 days (extended from the standard 15-day CTR deadline). The instrument is part of the post-2024 US enforcement architecture targeting fentanyl-related illicit-finance flows through the US-Mexico border MSB channel.

On 10 March 2026, Chile's Ministry of Mining submitted to the Contraloría General de la República the supreme decree establishing the requirements and conditions for a Special Lithium Operating Contract (CEOL) at the Laguna Verde salt flat in the Atacama Region. The CEOL is the third contract under the 2023 National Lithium Strategy and covers a 153 km² concession area across all project phases — exploration, evaluation, construction, production and closure — for a 40-year term. The operator is a consortium led by UK-listed CleanTech Lithium plc (CTL.L), which holds a JORC- compliant resource of 1.9 million tonnes LCE and targets 20,000 t LCE per year at plateau production. Contraloría toma de razón (formal legal ratification) was expected by Q2 2026.

The US Department of Commerce published its final affirmative determination of sales at less-than-fair-value in the antidumping investigation of animal feed-grade L-lysine (lysine) from China (case A-570-215) on 23 July 2026, following a preliminary determination published 6 March 2026 (91 FR 11030). Commerce found a China-wide weighted-average dumping margin of 139.83% (cash deposit rate 139.65% after subsidy-offset adjustment), based on adverse facts available after Commerce found Zhengzhou Longgu Trading Co., the sole company with a calculated margin, and the Eppen Group group of producers/exporters uncooperative and ineligible for a separate rate in the final determination. A group of separate-rate companies — including Anhui BBCA Biochemical, Heilongjiang Wanlirunda Biotechnology, and others exporting through trading intermediaries such as Agromate Sg, Ainore (Tianjin), and Aollen Biotech — received a 73.55% dumping margin (73.37% cash deposit rate). The order covers lysine regardless of form (HCl, sulfate, liquid) under HTSUS 2922.41.0090 and related subheadings. A companion countervailing-duty investigation (preliminary 22 January 2026, 91 FR 2745) was finalized the same day; suspension of liquidation runs from 6 March 2026, with a final AD order contingent on an ITC injury determination due within 45 days of the final LTFV finding.

The DRC government's APCSC formally launched a technical and financial audit of the Sicomines Sino-Congolese mining project on March 5, 2026, signing consortium contracts with ATF-PCSC/Mayer Brown (legal), Rothschild & Cie (financial valuation), EY (accounting and tax), and SRK Consulting (resource certification). The audit covers 16 years of project implementation (2008–2024), examining revenue flows, infrastructure delivery commitments, and compliance with the collaboration convention and its five amendments. The initiative signals DRC's intention to renegotiate or enforce Amendment 5 (2024) terms, which conditioned any further project expansion on audit outcomes and a certified feasibility study.

Guinea's Conseil National de la Transition (CNT) adopted two laws on March 5, 2026 — Loi-Plan L/2026/004/CNT (2026–2040 development plan) and Loi-Programme L/2026/005/CNT (2026–2030 implementation programme) — constituting the first-ever national-plan legislation to encode the Simandou 2040 economic-transformation agenda into law. President Mamadi Doumbouya promulgated both laws by presidential decree on March 20, 2026. The programme targets average GDP growth of 10.3% per year, a projected GDP of ~$152B by 2040 (vs. ~$35B today), 122 megaprojects, 36 structural reforms, and >5 million new jobs, with iron ore, bauxite-to-aluminium, energy, infrastructure, and agriculture as the six transformation pillars.

Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) issued Decreto Supremo N° 002-2026-EM on 5 March 2026, modifying Decreto Supremo N° 017-2018-EM (Reglamento del Mecanismo de Racionamiento de Gas Natural) to establish a binding six-tier priority order for natural gas allocation whenever the rationing mechanism is formally activated during declared energy emergencies. Tiers prioritise residential and regulated commercial consumers at the top, followed by CNG vehicle/public-transport stations, regulated industrial consumers by volume threshold, independent consumers with firm contracts, and interruptible-contract holders at the base. The decree imposes binding obligations on natural-gas producers, pipeline-transport concessionaires, distribution concessionaires, and LNG-plant operators to optimise production and supply during declared emergencies, with Osinergmin empowered to grant temporary regulatory exemptions. The decree was triggered by the 2 March 2026 Megantini district rupture of Transportadora de Gas del Perú's (TGP) main Camisea pipeline, which reduced supply to approximately 9–10% of normal capacity and forced Cálidda (Lima/Callao distributor) to cut gas to 850 industrial users and all thermal power plants.

On 4 March 2026, the Council of Ministers of Côte d'Ivoire, chaired by President Alassane Ouattara, adopted two presidential decrees granting 4-year lithium exploration permits. Stargate Atlantis Minerals SARL received rights covering the departments of Dianra, Kani, and Mankono in the north-west Woroba region; Ivoire Lithium Resources SARL (ILR SARL) received rights covering M'Batto, Agboville, and Adzopé in the south-east Lagunes region. The decrees operationalise Article 8 of the 2014 Mining Code and mark the first lithium-specific mineral-rights instruments in Côte d'Ivoire's IPTM register, targeting Birimian greenstone spodumene-bearing pegmatite belts. Côte d'Ivoire ranked Africa's top mining exploration jurisdiction in 2025 with USD 186M in exploration investment; these are the first operational output of the lithium exploration pipeline endorsed by the PIRME integrated minerals strategy adopted in December 2025.

On 4 March 2026 the Council of the EU adopted its general approach (negotiating position) on proposed amendments to the Critical Raw Materials Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1252) under the RESourceEU package. The Council position transfers from member states to the European Commission the responsibility for identifying large companies using critical raw materials and mandates Commission notification to member states and company boards of CRM supply risks. It endorses mandatory permanent-magnet labelling and recycled-content declarations, product passports for permanent-magnet information obligations, and expanded Commission authority to propose risk-mitigation measures. Adoption of the general approach unlocks interinstitutional trilogue negotiations with the European Parliament.

The European Commission on 4 March 2026 adopted COM(2026) 100 final, the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), the central horizontal industrial- policy instrument of the 2024-29 Commission term. The proposal targets raising EU manufacturing's share of GDP from 14.3% (2024) to at least 20% by 2035 via three pillars: (i) demand-side "Made in EU" and low-carbon public-procurement preferences for strategic sectors; (ii) FDI conditionality on investments above €100 million from countries with >40% global manufacturing share in batteries, EVs, solar PV or critical raw materials; (iii) accelerated permitting through a one-stop-shop and member-state-designated Industrial Acceleration Areas. The IAA is a proposal — co-decision adoption is expected mid-to-late 2027.

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.

The European Commission approved France's €1.1 billion state aid scheme (SA.120765) under Section 6.1 of the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), authorising a tax credit (Crédit d'Impôt Industrie Verte — C3IV) for strategic investments that add new cleantech manufacturing capacity in solar PV, onshore and offshore wind technologies, heat pumps, and battery technologies. The scheme is available across the whole of France until 31 December 2028 and is the eighth CISAF cleantech-manufacturing- capacity approval, bringing cumulative CISAF cleantech support to over €10 billion. It is the first CISAF approval delivered via a tax-credit instrument, distinct from the grant-based architectures used in the parallel Germany SA.121215, Greece SA.117469, and Luxembourg SA.120921 approvals.

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.

Decreto No. 17-2026, published in La Gaceta No. 37,081 on 27 February 2026, enacts the Ley de Reactivación Económica y Desarrollo Humano — an omnibus statute establishing extraordinary, exceptional, and temporarily-scoped fiscal and financial measures to stimulate economic activity across Honduras's principal productive sectors: export manufacturing (textiles-apparel, automotive-harnesses), agribusiness, tourism, and micro-small-and-medium enterprises (MIPYMES). The law is administered by SAR (Servicio de Administración de Rentas), SDE (Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico), and SEFIN, and operationalises the post-2024-election Castro-administration economic-reactivation legislative agenda alongside companion Decreto No. 2-2026 (RIT five-period extension, La Gaceta No. 37,065). The statute's explicitly temporary and extraordinary character distinguishes it from permanent-regime instruments; its multi-sector coverage spans Honduras's USD 30bn+ GDP economy.

On 1 May 2026 the trade pillar of the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement (the "Interim Trade Agreement", iTA) entered provisional application between the European Union and the four Mercosur states — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — following its publication in the EU Official Journal on 27 February 2026 alongside the broader EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement (EMPA). The iTA covers goods (eliminating duties on more than 90% of bilateral trade over a transition period including immediate cuts on cars, pharmaceuticals, wine and olive oil), services, government procurement at federal and state level, intellectual property (344 EU geographical indications protected), SPS/TBT disciplines, and a sustainability chapter. Mercosur receives tariff-rate quotas on agri-food exports (beef, poultry, sugar, ethanol, honey). Provisional application proceeds pending full ratification of EMPA by the Council, European Parliament and all EU national parliaments and a pending CJEU opinion; only the trade pillar applies provisionally.

The Ecuadorian National Assembly approved on 26 February 2026 (vote 77-70, urgent-economic-matter procedure) the Ley Orgánica para el Fortalecimiento de los Sectores Estratégicos de Minería y Energía, the statutory complement to President Daniel Noboa's Decreto Ejecutivo 273 of 31 December 2025. The law was published in the Quinto Suplemento of Registro Oficial on 2 March 2026 with no presidential objection and entered into force the same day. It comprises 28 articles, two general provisions and one transitory provision. The mining title codifies the 3–8% sliding royalty scale and channels 60% of royalty receipts to social investment via decentralised governments (45% provincial / 35% municipal / 20% parochial) — the legislative anchor for the regime introduced by Decree 273. The energy title amends the Ley Orgánica del Servicio Público de Energía Eléctrica to recognise distributed generation, self-supply and autonomous energy districts, and establishes exception-route participation for foreign state-owned enterprises and popular/solidarity-economy organisations alongside private capital. A controversial Galápagos-adjacent provision permitting expedited mining/energy procedures has triggered domestic constitutional challenge.

The US Department of Commerce published preliminary affirmative countervailing duty (CVD) determinations on February 26, 2026, finding that producers and exporters of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells (whether or not assembled into modules) from India, Indonesia, and Laos received countervailable government subsidies. Preliminary subsidy rates are 125.87% for India; 85.99%–143.30% by individual Indonesian producer (104.38% all-others rate); and a uniform 80.67% for Laos. Commerce ordered US Customs and Border Protection to begin collecting cash deposits at these rates on subject imports pending a parallel antidumping investigation and final determinations later in 2026. The case originated from a petition filed in August 2025 by US crystalline silicon PV manufacturers.

On 26 February 2026 USTR published a Federal Register notice (90 FR 9686, docket USTR-2026-0034) inviting public comment on the design of a plurilateral Agreement on Trade in Critical Minerals and accompanying policy actions to strengthen critical-mineral supply-chain resilience. The notice signals that the agreement under consideration would include "a commitment by all parties to implement minimum prices or other price mechanisms, with appropriate border measures" — a coordinated price-floor/border-adjustment regime across like-minded partners to incentivise ex-China mining, processing, and refining investment. Comments were due 19 March 2026.

On 25 February 2026 the Swiss Federal Council adopted extensive amendments to the Ordinance on Measures in Connection with the Situation in Ukraine (Ukraine Ordinance) and the Ordinance on Measures against Belarus, completing implementation of the EU's 19th sanctions package with effect from 26 February 2026. Headline measures: a complete ban on the purchase and import of Russian LNG taking effect 25 April 2026 (transition period until end-2026 for pre-existing long-term contracts); a complete prohibition on the provision of crypto-asset services to Russian persons and companies; new service bans covering advanced-technology / AI / high-performance-computing services and tourism-related services; expansion of the dual-use end-user list (Annex 2) including additional Chinese entities; SECO authority to grant divestment-exemption licences until end-2026 under Art. 30a; and parallel adoption of the EU October 2025 Belarus measures via amendment to the Belarus Ordinance.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on 25 February 2026 that a U.S. person agreed to pay $3,777,000 to settle potential civil liability for 20 apparent egregious violations of the Syrian Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 542) occurring between January 2018 and December 2021. The individual provided managerial services — reviewing and signing financial statements, approving operational and employee expenses, and supervising service-fee collection — as an officer and board member of four Syrian real-estate companies supporting luxury real-estate development projects in Syria. OFAC determined the conduct was egregious and not voluntarily self-disclosed, setting the settlement at 10× the statutory IEEPA base amount per apparent violation (the maximum egregious multiplier) and establishing a significant personal-liability precedent for U.S. persons serving on boards or in officer roles of companies in sanctioned jurisdictions.

On 25 February 2026 Zimbabwe's Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, under Minister Polite Kambamura, announced an immediate and indefinite suspension of exports of all unprocessed minerals — including lithium-bearing spodumene concentrates, which had previously been exempt from the country's December 2022 ban on raw lithium ore (Statutory Instrument 213 of 2022). The directive was communicated by ministerial letter dated 17 February 2026 to the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe and copied to lithium producers; the suspension took effect on 25 February and explicitly covered consignments already in transit, with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) and the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) ordered to halt clearance at the border. The measure brings forward by roughly eleven months a lithium-concentrate export ban that had been telegraphed for January 2027, and broadens it to all raw mineral exports. The Minister cited "national interest", in-country beneficiation, transparency, and prevention of mineral export "leakages" (smuggling and under-invoicing) as the rationale. Bloomberg and Reuters reporting noted under-declaration of grade and value as a proximate trigger; the government later (April 2026) clarified that reinstated exports would require Quota Verification certificates, monthly reporting, on-site assay laboratories, and individual producer-level export ceilings — i.e. the suspension functions as a reset to a quota regime rather than a permanent embargo. Zimbabwe is the world's fifth-largest lithium producer (~6-7% of global supply on a contained-LCE basis) and exported 1.128 million tonnes of spodumene concentrate in 2025 (an 11% YoY increase). The producer base is overwhelmingly Chinese-owned: Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt (Arcadia / Prospect), Sinomine Resource Group (Bikita Minerals), Chengxin Lithium (Sabi Star), and Sichuan Yahua (Kamativi) together account for the majority of output. The ban therefore primarily disrupts Chinese midstream lithium converters in Sichuan and Jiangxi that depend on Zimbabwean spodumene feedstock, while incrementally tightening the global seaborne concentrate market. The action is structurally a continuation of the EM resource-nationalism / upstream-capture template pioneered by Indonesia's nickel-ore ban (2020) and most recently extended by the DRC's ARECOMS cobalt suspension and quota system (Feb-Oct 2025). It reinforces a pattern in which producing-country governments capture processing margin from consuming-country smelters, and it does so in a commodity (lithium) where ex-China refining capacity is still thin, magnifying near-term price impact even though the headline share of global supply removed is moderate.

On 24 February 2026 China's Ministry of Commerce simultaneously issued Announcement No. 11 and Announcement No. 12 [2026], activating for the first time the Control List (受控名单) mechanism under Article 28 and the Watch List (关注名单) mechanism under Article 26 of the Dual-Use Export Control Regulations (effective 1 December 2024), designating 40 Japanese entities in total. The Control List (20 entities, led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Shipbuilding Co.) imposes an absolute prohibition on any person or entity worldwide supplying PRC-origin dual-use items to listed parties; the Watch List (20 entities, led by SUBARU Corporation) bars general licensing and requires exporters to file risk assessments and non-military-use commitments. MOFCOM framed both measures as a response to Japan's "remilitarization" trajectory, escalating well beyond the blanket enhanced- review framework established by Announcement No. 1 [2026] in January.

India's Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, issued Notification No. 62/2025-26 on 24 February 2026 permitting the export of 25 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) of wheat under HS Codes 10011900 (durum wheat - other) and 10019910 (other wheat) while keeping the headline export-policy classification as "Prohibited". A second tranche of 25 LMT was authorised by Notification No. 13/2026-27 on 27 April 2026, bringing the cumulative quota envelope to 50 LMT (5 million tonnes). Public Notice No. 05/2026-27 (30 April 2026) prescribed allocation modalities for the second tranche: 18 LMT for large exporters, 5 LMT for state trading entities and cooperatives, and 2 LMT for MSMEs, with online applications open 1-10 May 2026 and authorisations valid for six months. The mechanism partially unwinds the May 2022 blanket wheat export ban (DGFT Notification 06/2015-2020) which had been in continuous force for nearly four years, while preserving DGFT's authority to retighten via the prohibition baseline. Pre-existing government-to-government exports to meet third-country food security needs remain permitted outside the quota envelope.

Romania's Government adopted Emergency Ordinance nr. 8/2026 on 24 February 2026, published in the Official Gazette (Monitorul Oficial) nr. 147 of 25 February 2026 and entering into force 1 March 2026, committing a EUR 5 billion (~RON 25 bn) horizontal economic-recovery and productive-investment envelope through 2032 structured around nine state-aid schemes, a 200% corporate R&D expense deduction (High-Tech Research Schema), a RON 1 bn Investment and Development Bank (BID) recapitalization, and a RON 1 bn EximBank export-credit allocation. The ordinance frames Romania's pivot "from consumption to investments as the engine of economic growth" and establishes a Strategic Investment tier (minimum RON 1 bn project value) qualifying for the highest-intensity state-aid eligibility, while introducing a 3% tax-compliance bonus and asset-expensing threshold raised to RON 5,000.

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.

Ethiopia's Council of Ministers adopted Regulation No. 586/2026 on 23 February 2026, published in the Federal Negarit Gazette No. 17 (Year 31), repealing in its entirety the prior Investment Incentives Regulation No. 517/2022. The regulation replaces the legacy 6-15 year corporate income tax holiday regime with a performance-based reduced-tax-rate architecture: 5% for SEZ developers and recognised startups (up to 10 years), 15% for priority sectors including manufacturing, renewable energy, agro-processing, mining value-addition, and technology (2-6 years by sector), and 25% for companies listing on the Ethiopian Securities Exchange. Incentive eligibility requires a minimum USD 10 million capital investment threshold for most priority sectors, and every beneficiary must sign a binding Performance Agreement with the Ethiopian Investment Commission committing to employment, capital-deployment, production, and export targets before incentives are activated — failure to meet targets results in suspension of all incentives with no grace period.

On 23 February 2026 the Korea Trade Commission (KTC) at its 461st plenary meeting adopted a final affirmative anti-dumping determination against hot-rolled carbon and alloy steel (HRC) imports from China and Japan, recommending definitive five-year duties of 28.16–33.10% on Chinese-origin HRC and 31.58–33.57% on Japanese-origin HRC to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) for implementation via customs notification. The investigation was initiated in March 2024 on petition by Hyundai Steel, following December 2023 injury allegations, with provisional duties imposed in September 2025. KTC simultaneously recommended acceptance of price-undertaking commitments from three Japanese companies (including JFE Steel and Nippon Steel) and six Chinese companies (including Baosteel), allowing those exporters to avoid the definitive duties by maintaining minimum import-price levels; remaining non-participating exporters face the full duty rates under a five-year WTO ADA Article 11 sunset ending 2031.