Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 23 December 2024 the US Bureau of Industry and Security published a final rule (89 FR 104408; FR Doc 2024-30425; RIN 0694-AJ83) amending the Export Administration Regulations to implement decisions adopted at the Australia Group's 2023 and 2024 plenary meetings. The rule adds new ECCN 2B352.k controlling instruments for the automated chemical synthesis of peptides that are partly or entirely automated and capable of generating peptides at a system-synthesis scale of 1 mmol or greater, finalising the April 2023 BIS proposed rule. It also adds dipropylamine to ECCN 1C350.d.11, neosaxitoxin to ECCN 1C351.d.12, revises the 1C351.d.3 entry from "botulinum toxins" to "botulinum neurotoxins" to capture all serotypes, adds a "minimum detection limit" definition for toxic-gas monitors in 2B351.a, and explicitly captures single-use centrifugal separators in 2B352.c. License requirements (CB, AT, CW where applicable) apply for export to non-Australia-Group destinations; the rule is effective on publication.

Regulation (EU) 2025/40, published in the Official Journal on 22 January 2025 and entering into force on 11 February 2025, replaces the 1994 Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive 94/62/EC with a directly-applicable Regulation. It mandates binding recycled-content targets for plastic packaging (by polymer and format, reaching 30–65% by 2030 with higher targets by 2040), minimum reusable-packaging shares for beverages and transport, recyclability standards for all packaging placed on the EU market from 2030, deposit-return-scheme obligations for beverage containers from 2029, and bans on specified single-use plastic packaging formats. General application begins 12 August 2026, with staggered compliance windows extending to 2030 and beyond, affecting all non-EU exporters shipping consumer goods, beverages, or e-commerce fulfilment into the EU single market.

The European Commission adopted Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/4 on 17 December 2024, imposing definitive five-year anti-dumping duties on imports of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) originating in China, published in the OJ on 9 January 2025. Duty rates are differentiated by Chinese exporter: €0.25/kg for Anhui Jinhe Star (Gold Star), €0.74/kg for Lomon Billions Group and all non-cooperating exporters, and €0.64/kg for other cooperating producers — converting the provisional ad-valorem duties (14.4%–39.7%) imposed by CR 2024/1923 in July 2024 into specific definitive measures covering CN codes 3206 11 00 and 3206 19 00. China filed WTO dispute DS636 in April 2025 challenging the measure.

Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Foreign Trade (GAFT), under Chairman Dr. Majed Alkassabi, issued a final affirmative determination imposing definitive anti-dumping duties on Sulphonated Naphthalene Formaldehyde (SNF) — a concrete superplasticiser/water- reducing admixture — originating in or exported from China and Russia. The decision was published in the official gazette on 2 December 2024 and took effect 3 December 2024, directing the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority to collect duties in the range of 18.12%-34% for five years (to 2 December 2029). The investigation was initiated 20 November 2023 following a complaint from the Saudi domestic industry.

Final rule (RIN 0694-AJ93, FR Doc 2024-25445, 89 FR 87279) under which BIS expands the Russian and Belarusian Industry Sector Sanctions of the Export Administration Regulations to cover an enumerated list of chemical precursors used in the synthesis of chloropicrin and riot-control agents (CS, CN, CR), and adds associated technical clarifications. The action is the export- control complement to the US Department of State's annual report to Congress on Compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, which determined that Russia had used riot-control agents as a method of warfare against Ukrainian forces in violation of the CWC. Effective on publication, 1 November 2024.

On 31 October 2024, South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced strengthened export controls in response to North Korea's long-range ballistic missile launch earlier that day. The measure designates 15 "North Korea-customized" watch-list items across the solid-fuel missile production chain — including ammonium perchlorate, sodium chloride, liquid thiokol, carbon fiber, glass fiber fabric, thermal batteries and inertial-guidance components — that North Korea finds difficult to produce domestically. It operates under Korea's existing Special Notice on Trade for Fulfilling International Peace and Security Obligations, building on the June 2016 Nuclear and Missile Surveillance Items framework and Korea's NSG/MTCR commitments.

Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1400 of 23 October 2024, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, sets temporary export quotas on mineral fertilisers from Russia for the six-month period 1 December 2024 – 31 May 2025. The aggregate cap is approximately 19.2 million tonnes, comprising about 11.2 Mt for nitrogen fertilisers and roughly 8 Mt for compound (NPK / NP / NPS) fertilisers. As with prior cycles, the quota is allocated across exporters by historical share and motivated by domestic-market supply stabilisation rather than revenue capture. Russia is the world's largest mineral-fertiliser exporter (~15-20% of global trade depending on segment), so the semi-annual quota is one of the principal global ag-input policy instruments.

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

On 11 October 2024, the Secretary of the Treasury — acting in consultation with the Secretary of State and pursuant to section 1(a)(i) of Executive Order 13902 — determined that the petroleum and petrochemical sectors of the Iranian economy are sectors of strategic concern, exposing non-US persons that operate in or knowingly facilitate significant transactions with those sectors to secondary sanctions and SDN-listing risk. The determination was issued in response to Iran's 1 October 2024 ballistic- missile attack on Israeli targets and was formally published in the Federal Register on 19 November 2024 (FR Doc 2024-26800). Concurrent with the determination, OFAC designated an international network — including Sepehr Energy Jahan Nama Pars — that had shipped millions of barrels of Iranian crude on behalf of Iran's Armed Forces General Staff to the People's Republic of China.

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

Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy published the "Bundesförderung Industrie und Klimaschutz" (BIK) funding guideline on 23 August 2024 and opened the first funding call on 30 August 2024, making roughly EUR 3.3 billion available through 2030 — financed from the Klima- und Transformationsfonds (KTF) — to decarbonise industrial SMEs and large manufacturers. Module 1 funds decarbonisation investment and R&D projects up to EUR 200 million per project; Module 2 funds carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCU/CCS) investment (up to EUR 30 million) and research (up to EUR 35 million) projects. A second funding call opened in January 2026, and individual awards under the programme — including a EUR 140 million grant to Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann GmbH for its EAF2HKM electric-arc-furnace steel-decarbonisation project — have since been logged as state aid by Global Trade Alert.

The Defence and Strategic Goods List (DSGL) 2024 was registered on the Federal Register of Legislation on 16 August 2024 under the Customs Act 1901 and Defence Trade Controls Act 2012, repealing and replacing the DSGL 2021. It comprises the Munitions List (Part 1) and the Dual-Use List (Part 2, nine technology categories including nuclear materials, chemicals, electronics, sensors and marine and aerospace equipment) that Australia controls for export, brokering and intangible transfer. The 2024 instrument periodically realigns the list with changes agreed in the multilateral non-proliferation and export-control regimes Australia belongs to (Wassenaar Arrangement, Missile Technology Control Regime, Nuclear Suppliers Group, Australia Group); most changes are clarifications to existing controls, with a smaller number of items entering or leaving control or having their approval requirements adjusted.

Mauritania enacted Loi n°2024-037 — the world's first standalone national Green Hydrogen Code — creating a dedicated legal and fiscal framework for the development, production, export and processing of green hydrogen and its derivatives (green ammonia, green methanol, green steel). The law establishes the Agence Mauritanienne pour l'Hydrogène Vert (AMHV) as regulator and one-stop-shop for project licences, grants comprehensive fiscal incentives including full VAT exemption on equipment imports and zero export tax on hydrogen exports, and provides a 30-year fiscal-stability undertaking to qualifying investors. The Code underpins a cumulative project pipeline estimated at USD 40 billion and positions Mauritania as the lead jurisdiction for the proposed Mauritania-EU green-hydrogen export corridor under the CBAM-compatible flag.

The Government of Serbia adopted on 16 July 2024 a Decree reinstating the Spatial Plan of the Special Purpose Area (SPSPA) for the exploitation and processing of jadarite mineral — the legal instrument underpinning Rio Tinto's Jadar project in the Mačva District (Loznica municipality). The reinstatement followed the Constitutional Court of Serbia's ruling of 11 July 2024, which declared unconstitutional the Government's January 2022 decree that had revoked the original 2020 SPSPA (Sl. glasnik RS 26/2020) under political pressure. The Jadar deposit is the world's largest known jadarite (Li-borosilicate) resource (~158 Mt at 1.8% Li₂O, 13% B₂O₃), projected to supply ~17% of forecast 2030 European LCE demand, and was subsequently designated an EU CRMA Strategic Project.

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).

The Diet enacted on 31 May 2024 (promulgated 7 June 2024 as Law No. 45 of 2024) the "Act on Partially Amending the Act on Strengthening Industrial Competitiveness and Other Acts to Create New Business and Encourage Investment in Industries". The provisions establishing Japan's first US IRA-style production-and-sales-linked tax credit took effect 2 September 2024 per METI's press release of the same date. Eligible enterprises with a METI-certified business plan can claim tax deductions tied to domestic production-and-sales volume of five designated strategic products: electric vehicles, green steel, green chemicals, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and semiconductors. The credit is available for ten years from certification (certifications must be issued by 31 March 2027), with an annual cap of 40% of corporate tax liability (20% for semiconductors) and a 4-year carry-forward. Eligibility is conditional on meeting wage-growth or capital-investment thresholds in each fiscal year.

Japan's Act on the Promotion of Supply and Utilization of Low-Carbon Hydrogen and its Derivatives for a Smooth Transition to a Decarbonized, Growth-Oriented Economic Structure (the Hydrogen Society Promotion Act) was enacted by the Diet on 17 May 2024, promulgated 24 May 2024, and came into force on 23 October 2024. It is Japan's first legislation specifically targeting hydrogen. The Act establishes a 15-year price-gap Contract-for-Difference (CfD) subsidy backstopping the delivered cost of certified low-carbon hydrogen, ammonia, synthetic methane and synthetic fuels supplied to Japan, plus a "Hub Support" capex grant for shared port/pipeline/storage infrastructure. METI is the competent authority and JOGMEC the implementing agency. Total subsidy envelope is ~3 trillion yen (~USD 20bn) financed via GX Transition Bonds under the 2023 GX Promotion Act.

On 9 April 2024, Türkiye's Ministry of Trade restricted exports of 1,019 tariff lines across 54 product groups to Israel — including cement, marble, sulphur, aluminium wire, ceramics, varnishes and mineral fertilisers — in response to Israel's conduct of the Gaza war and its refusal of a Turkish request to participate in aid airdrops. The government stated the restriction would remain in force until Israel declared an immediate ceasefire and allowed unimpeded humanitarian aid into Gaza. The measure was superseded three weeks later, on 2 May 2024, when the Ministry halted all exports, imports and transit trade with Israel across every product category.

On 5 April 2024 Japan's Cabinet adopted an amendment to the Export Trade Control Order, following a 1 March 2024 Cabinet understanding, extending the export prohibition on goods that strengthen Russia's industrial base. The additional goods span parts of HS chapters 27 (mineral fuels and oils), 28 (inorganic chemicals), 39, 73, 81 (tungsten powder, molybdenum, cobalt, zirconium, rhenium), 82, 84, 85 (including lithium-ion and nickel-metal-hydride batteries), 89 and 90, with the specific goods fixed by ministerial ordinance and notices issued on 10 April. The export ban applies from 17 April 2024. A separate METI notice bans imports of non-industrial diamonds of Russian origin from 10 May 2024, regardless of port of shipment.

The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) initiated an anti-dumping investigation on 28 March 2024 concerning imports of Titanium Dioxide (TiO₂, pigment grade; HS 3206.11/3206.19) originating in or exported from China PR (file 14/51/2002-DGAD), on application of Indian domestic producers Travancore Titanium Products Ltd, Kerala Minerals & Metals Ltd (KMML), Meghmani Organochem Ltd, and VV Titanium Pigments Pvt Ltd. Final Findings were issued on 12 February 2025 recommending anti-dumping duties on Chinese TiO₂ imports; those findings were subsequently remanded by court order in October 2025, reopening the determination phase. DGTR issued a second Disclosure Statement on 12 May 2026 and extended the remand timeline on 18 May 2026, with revised Final Findings expected in Q3 2026. The investigation sits within a global TiO₂ anti-dumping cluster targeting Chinese producers alongside parallel EU provisional measures (2024) and USITC AD-CVD proceedings.

Qatar's Cabinet approved and publicly launched the Third National Development Strategy (NDS3) 2024-2030 on 10 January 2024, the final-stage framework on the path to Qatar National Vision 2030. NDS3 targets average annual GDP growth of 4%, a 25% GHG-emissions reduction, and a skilled-workforce share rising to 46% of the labour force, anchored by LNG capacity expansion from ~77 mtpa to ~142 mtpa and diversification into manufacturing, logistics, financial services, and tourism clusters. It is the parent umbrella under which all sectoral implementing strategies — including the Qatar National Manufacturing Strategy 2024-2030 — and all QIA sovereign-wealth deployment criteria operate through 2030.