Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2665 actions· ✨ 90 recent

President Claudia Sheinbaum's government published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 19 Dec 2024 a decree amending the General Import & Export Tax Law (TIGIE) and the IMMEX Decree. The decree imposes a 35% temporary import duty on 138 finished-apparel tariff lines (Chapters 61, 62, 63 plus tariff item 9404.40.01) and a 15% duty on 17 textile-input tariff lines (Chapters 52, 55, 58, 60), totalling 155 fractions. Concurrently, 302 tariff fractions in Chapters 61/62/63 are removed from IMMEX duty-deferral eligibility (moved out of Annex II Section C into Annex I). The measure exempts countries with which Mexico has an FTA (notably USMCA partners) and is in force from 20 Dec 2024 until 23 Apr 2026.

Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 establishes the first EU-wide binding prohibition on placing, making available on, or exporting from the EU single market any products made with forced labour at any stage of production, manufacture, harvest, extraction or processing. The regulation is cross-sector and horizontal — no sectoral exemptions apply. It entered into force on 13 December 2024, with a phased implementation schedule; procedural and institutional framework provisions apply from 13 December 2024, while full operational application begins on 14 December 2027. The regulation empowers national competent authorities (and the Commission for state-imposed forced-labour cases involving third countries) to investigate, require withdrawal, and order destruction of non-compliant goods, and establishes a Commission-maintained publicly accessible database of high-risk geographic areas, sectors, and products.

Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), replaces the 2009 Ecodesign Directive with a cross-cutting product-sustainability framework covering nearly all physical goods placed on the EU single market. It empowers the Commission to adopt binding delegated acts setting ecodesign requirements (durability, reparability, recyclability, recycled content, chemical restrictions, energy and resource efficiency) by product category, establishes a mandatory Digital Product Passport (DPP) for supply-chain traceability, and bans the destruction of unsold consumer products. The regulation entered into force on 18 July 2024; the Commission's first ESPR and Energy Labelling Working Plan (2025–2030, COM(2025) 187) was adopted in April 2025, prioritising textiles, furniture, tyres, electronics, and iron/steel/aluminium.

Directive (EU) 2024/1760, adopted 13 June 2024 and entering into force 25 July 2024, imposes binding human-rights and environmental due-diligence obligations on large in-scope EU and non-EU companies across their chains of activities (upstream supply chain, own operations, and a limited part of downstream distribution). In-scope companies must identify, prevent, mitigate, and bring to an end actual and potential adverse human-rights and environmental impacts — covering forced labour, child labour, hazardous chemicals, and biodiversity loss — with obligations phased in from FY 2027 (EU companies with >5 000 employees and >EUR 1.5 bn turnover) through FY 2029 (>1 000 employees and >EUR 450 m). Companies must also adopt a climate transition plan compatible with the Paris Agreement 1.5 °C pathway (Art 22), and face civil liability for damages in national courts (Art 29); the original transposition deadline of 26 July 2026 was postponed and scope narrowed by the EU Omnibus I package (Directive 2026/470).

On 17 May 2024 the US Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF), chaired by DHS, published the largest single expansion of the UFLPA Entity List to date, adding 26 PRC-based companies (89 FR 43365). The majority are cotton traders and warehouse operators located outside the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) but identified as downstream conduits laundering XUAR-origin cotton into global supply chains. Under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act's rebuttable-presumption (§2(d)(2)(B)(v)), goods wholly or in part produced by any listed entity are presumed to violate 19 U.S.C. §1307 and are barred from US entry unless the importer demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that no forced labour was involved. US apparel brands with exposure to the listed traders (Levi's, Gap, PVH/Calvin Klein sourcing chains) were required to trace and unwind that exposure within 60 days.

On 21 March 2024, President William Ruto formally launched Kenya's Fourth Medium Term Plan 2023-2027 (MTP IV) at State House Nairobi, the final five-year implementation plan under the Kenya Vision 2030 blueprint. MTP IV is the operational vehicle for the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), the Ruto administration's foundational industrial-policy and value-chain framework. The plan organises Kenya's industrial-policy push around five core BETA pillars and nine value chains: agro-processing (incl. edible-oil crops, leather, dairy, tea), textiles and apparel, housing and settlement, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, digital superhighway and creative economy, manufacturing (incl. automotive and EV motorcycle and vehicle assembly), MSME and cooperative sector strengthening, and blue-economy/natural-resource value addition. Implementation is anchored in County Aggregation and Industrial Parks (CAIPs) across all 47 counties and in the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs). MTP IV is the umbrella framework shaping Kenya's domestic industrial-incentive architecture, foreign-investment priorities, and AfCFTA positioning over 2023-2027. Subsequent sectoral instruments — including the Mining Royalty Collection and Management Regulations 2024 — operate within this policy perimeter. This is the first KE foundational industrial-policy filing in the register.

Three-year export-promotion policy issued by the Bangladesh Ministry of Commerce on 25 February 2024 covering FY2024-25 through FY2026-27. Sets a $110bn merchandise+services export target by FY2026-27 (vs. ~$56bn FY2023-24 base), restructures the cash-incentive regime, and designates "highest priority" and "special development" sectors including ready-made garments, leather, jute, ICT, pharmaceuticals, agro-processing, light engineering, and plastics. Explicitly designed as the transition framework for navigating Bangladesh's LDC graduation (effective 24 November 2026), at which point the country will lose EU Everything-But-Arms duty-free access and face an estimated 10% average MFN tariff on EU exports.