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

On 26 December 2025, Japan's Cabinet approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) national budget, which Global Trade Alert logs as including a "Next-Generation Aircraft Development Support" financial-grant programme administered by METI, effective with the fiscal year on 1 April 2026 and running through 31 March 2027. The line item corresponds to METI's "Next-Generation Aircraft Development Support Project" (jiki kokuki kaihatsu-to shien jigyo), funded through the Decarbonisation Growth-type Economic Structure Transition Promotion Subsidy (GX Transition Bond proceeds) and disbursed via a designated implementing body to aerospace-supply-chain firms. The FY2026 allocation is JPY 150 billion, up from JPY 81 billion in FY2025 -- an 85% increase -- aimed at strengthening Japan's aircraft-parts and materials supply chain (composites, advanced materials, engine and airframe components) and its international-competitiveness and economic-security positioning in next-generation aircraft programmes.

On 26 December 2025, Japan's Cabinet approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) national budget, which the Global Trade Alert database logs as including a "Project to Promote the Strengthening of Autonomous Resource Circulation Systems" financial-grant line administered by METI, effective with the fiscal year on 1 April 2026. The line is the continuation of METI's "Decarbonisation Growth-Type Economic Structure Transition Promotion Subsidy (Autonomous Resource Circulation System Strengthening Promotion Project)" (脱炭素成長型経済 構造移行推進対策費補助金（自律型資源循環システム強靱化促進事業）), which funds private-sector investment in recycled-material manufacturing and recovery equipment for rare metals/rare earths, automotive and small-electronics lithium-ion batteries, plastics, and textiles. Japanese budget-press reporting puts the FY2026 allocation at JPY 7.3 billion (73億円), up from JPY 3.0 billion (30億円) in FY2025 -- roughly a 2.4x year-on-year increase. METI opened the call for the executing body (執行団体) on 18 February 2026, with the General Incorporated Association for Low-Carbon Investment Promotion (GIO) again acting as the designated administrator, as it did for the FY2025 round.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 75 million loan with AMAG Austria Metall AG on 19 December 2025 (publicly announced 23 February 2026), financing research, development, digitalisation and environmental-sustainability upgrades at AMAG's aluminium plant in Ranshofen, Upper Austria. The credit is the first EIB operation in Austria under its new TechEU programme (accelerating industrial innovation in Europe) and benefits from InvestEU programme backing. It contributes to a wider AMAG investment programme with total projected costs of EUR 168 million over 2025-2028, and the EIB explicitly frames the financing as advancing the EU objective of a sustainable, diversified and stable supply of critical raw materials, including aluminium.

The European Commission cleared a EUR 172 million Dutch state-aid measure to fund preparatory activities of Nucleaire Energie Organisatie Nederland B.V. ("NEO NL"), the state-owned holding company the Dutch cabinet is establishing to develop two new nuclear power plants. The financing — provided as a state loan/capital contribution against a cabinet-requested ceiling of up to EUR 222 million for 2026-27 — covers technology-vendor selection, licensing work and other pre-construction preparation, and does not itself cover plant construction or operation. The Commission found the measure compatible with EU state-aid rules as contributing to decarbonisation of the Dutch energy mix.

On 16 December 2025 the European Commission adopted the Communication on a Battery Booster Strategy (later published in the Official Journal as C/2026/682), part of the EU Automotive Package presented alongside the CO2 emission-standards review, the Automotive Omnibus simplification, and the Corporate Vehicle Decarbonisation initiative. The Battery Booster envelopes EUR 1.8bn of EU-budget support for the European battery value chain: EUR 1.5bn from the Innovation Fund as interest-free loans for European battery cell producers ramping to giga-scale output (delivered through a dedicated Battery Booster Facility, with the implementing Commission Decision in stakeholder consultation through 15 March 2026), plus EUR 300m for critical raw materials projects in Europe. The strategy is the first standalone EU industrial-finance instrument targeted exclusively at battery cell manufacturing, and is paired with RESourceEU (3 Dec 2025) and the Industrial Accelerator Act proposal (4 Mar 2026) to stitch together upstream CRM, midstream cell production and downstream automotive demand.

The European Commission approved on 15 December 2025 a EUR 408 million Spanish state aid scheme (SA.119880) under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), funded by the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), to support decarbonisation of manufacturing industry. The scheme funds direct grants — capped at EUR 200 million per company or project — for investments in electrification, switching to renewable or low-carbon hydrogen, waste heat recovery, and carbon capture, storage and utilisation (CCUS) across a wide range of sectors including chemicals, ceramics, paper and metallurgy. Aid is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis to enterprises of all sizes, inside and outside the EU Emissions Trading System, and cannot finance increases in production capacity; Spain expects the scheme to deliver annual emissions savings of around 1.6 megatonnes of CO2, with beneficiary projects required to become operational within 60 months of the aid grant.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 384.3 million (~USD 70.2 million) loan under its "BNDES Mais Inovação" innovation credit line to FS Indústria de Biocombustíveis Ltda. (FS Bioenergia), financing the country's first Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) unit at its corn-ethanol plant in Lucas do Rio Verde, Mato Grosso. The facility will compress, inject, and permanently store CO2 in the saline sedimentary reservoirs of the Parecis Basin, targeting removal of ~423,000 tonnes of CO2 per year — effectively eliminating the plant's process emissions. The loan is state-directed concessional financing for a single named domestic producer and forms part of BNDES's broader decarbonisation and carbon-market financing push aligned with the Lula government's energy-transition agenda.

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), Australia's AUD 15 billion sovereign industrial-financing vehicle, committed AUD 100 million (~USD 66 million) of senior secured debt to Intellihub, a Sydney-based smart-meter and grid-data operator managing over 3.3 million meters nationally, announced 2 December 2025. The debt tranche sits inside a broader AUD 3.1 billion debt funding package and is earmarked for continued smart-meter rollout and upgrades to Intellihub's Evergen energy-management software, which supports virtual power plant and demand-response operations. NRFC classifies the deal as its first deployment in the Renewables and Low Emissions Technology priority area, framing it as decarbonisation-enabling grid infrastructure rather than a greenfield manufacturing build.

The European Commission approved on 6 November 2025 a EUR 700 million Spanish State aid scheme (SA.119884) under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF Section 6.1), to support the build-out of new manufacturing capacity for net-zero technologies listed in CISAF Annex II. The scheme funds direct grants, open Spain-wide and available until 31 December 2028, for investments producing batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, electrolysers, carbon capture/storage/utilisation equipment, and the critical raw materials used to make these components. It is a distinct, larger sister scheme to Spain's EUR 408 million SA.119880 CISAF Section 5 scheme (approved five weeks later), which instead funds decarbonisation of existing industrial processes rather than new clean-tech production capacity.

Singapore's Energy Market Authority announced on 27 October 2025 that it will award up to S$44 million under the Advanced Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) Incentive Scheme to Keppel's Infrastructure Division and Sembcorp Industries, operators of the first two advanced CCGTs in Singapore. The grant offsets the initial cost disadvantage of adopting higher-efficiency, hydrogen-ready CCGT units — each unit is expected to emit at least 200,000 tonnes less carbon annually than existing plants — with the units to be operational by December 2026 and 2027 respectively. This is a domestic industrial-policy subsidy with no cross-border trade restriction; filed for IPTM's tracking of state financing for power-sector decarbonisation capex.

On 1 October 2025, Canada Growth Fund Inc. (CGF), a CAD 15 billion federal Crown corporation, committed CAD 30 million as part of a growth investment in Cascadia Windows & Doors, a British Columbia-based manufacturer of high-performance fiberglass windows and doors, led by private-equity firm MKB Equity Partners with additional participation from Blue Earth Capital. Per CGF's own FY2025 annual report, the commitment totals CAD 31 million including CAD 1 million in partnership fees and expenses, of which CAD 19.1 million was deployed during Fiscal 2025. CGF states the capital will fund expansion of Cascadia's manufacturing capacity and North American market footprint, accelerating deployment of fiberglass window systems that support buildings-sector decarbonization (Cascadia's products claim up to 250% improved thermal performance versus aluminum frames and ~58% recycled content).

On 18 September 2025 the Australian Government announced a AUD 5 billion Net Zero Fund to accelerate industrial decarbonisation, delivered as a new sub-fund of the existing AUD 15 billion National Reconstruction Fund (NRF). The fund offers highly concessional finance — targeting a rate of return of the five-year Australian government bond rate minus 1 percentage point — to help heavy-industry facilities decarbonise energy-intensive operations and to scale up domestic manufacturing of low-emissions technologies. The fund finalised its design and opened to back new manufacturing-investment and energy projects on 20 April 2026.

On 18 September 2025 the Bundestag adopted the Gesetz zur Errichtung eines Sondervermögens "Infrastruktur und Klimaneutralität" (SVIKG), authorising up to EUR 500 bn of additional federal borrowing over a twelve-year horizon outside the constitutional debt brake, on the basis of the new Article 143h Grundgesetz inserted by the March 2025 constitutional amendment. The envelope splits into up to EUR 100 bn for Länder and municipal infrastructure (channelled via the companion Länder- und Kommunal-Infrastrukturfinanzierungsgesetz, LuKIFG, passed 9 October 2025), EUR 100 bn transferred to the Klima- und Trans- formationsfonds (KTF) in annual instalments through 2034, and up to EUR 300 bn for additional federal investments in transport, energy/ heat, hospital, education, digitalisation, civil protection and R&D infrastructure. Investments are eligible retroactively from 1 January 2025 and may be approved through 31 December 2036; loan repayment begins no later than 1 January 2044. SVIKG is the largest single industrial-finance instrument launched by an EU member state in the post-2022 industrial-policy cycle.

NIB, the multilateral development bank owned by the eight Nordic and Baltic member states, signed an 8-year EUR 150 million loan with Volvo Car AB to finance research and development on Volvo's next-generation scalable EV platform (SPA3) and the new EX60 model, covering the 2024-2026 investment period. NIB below-market development-bank financing functions as a state-adjacent subsidy to a domestic automaker's EV transition, framed by NIB as support for Sweden's decarbonisation and regional innovation-capacity goals.

The UK's state-owned National Wealth Fund (NWF), wholly owned by HM Treasury, made a £50 million (c. $66.4m) equity investment in AMP Clean Energy, backing the Asterion Industrial Partners-owned developer's rollout of "Battery Box" micro-scale battery storage sites connected to local distribution networks near demand centres (homes, schools, hospitals) across England, Scotland and Wales. The deal is intended to strengthen local grid flexibility and support industrial decarbonisation, and is explicitly tied to the government's Clean Power 2030 mission.

On 31 July 2025, Spain's state-owned promotional bank Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) signed a financing agreement with Honduran private bank Banco Atlántida under the standing "Línea ICO Canal Internacional" facility, making up to USD 15 million (approx. EUR 13 million) available to finance the international activity and investment projects of Spanish-linked companies operating in Honduras. It is the first agreement between ICO and a private financial institution in Honduras, with priority given to sustainability (energy efficiency, renewables, industrial decarbonisation) and digital-transformation/AI projects.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 345 million financing package, drawn from the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante, FMM), for Hermasa Navegação da Amazônia to build 60 river barges and 2 azimuth-propulsion towboats. BNDES frames the deal as the FMM's first allocation specifically targeted at decarbonisation, with the new fleet projected to cut annual CO2 emissions by up to 88.4% via fewer trips and a potential diesel-to-biodiesel switch on the towboats. The vessels will operate on the Madeira-Amazon river corridor in Brazil's North region, adding roughly 35% cargo capacity and an estimated 355 jobs.

The European Commission approved a EUR 227.9 million (USD ~267.1 million) Innovation Fund grant for TotalEnergies Raffinerie Antwerpen N.V.'s "ARCaDe" (Antwerp Refinery Carbon capture and DeNOx) project, with the grant agreement signed on 22 July 2025. ARCaDe was one of six projects — spanning refinery decarbonisation, hydrogen, ocean energy, plastics recycling, and green heat — invited off the Innovation Fund 2023 general-call (IF23Call) reserve list after eight originally-selected projects withdrew from the March 2025 signing round; the six-project cohort was worth nearly EUR 319 million combined. The project targets carbon capture and NOx-reduction retrofits at TotalEnergies' Antwerp refinery, financed via the EU Emissions Trading System.

Italy's national development bank, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), provided EUR 30 million in financing to the Pittini Group, one of Italy's largest steel producers, to fund sustainability investments at its Verona and Udine plants. The financing covers a low-emission transfer system for semi-finished steel products and more efficient water-treatment and production facilities. The deal is state development-bank support for decarbonisation capex in a strategic heavy-industry sector rather than a trade-restrictive measure.

Spain's state development bank, Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO), granted a loan of up to EUR 65 million directly to ITP Aero, a Zamudio (Vizcaya)-headquartered global leader in aircraft-engine design, development, manufacturing and maintenance. The facility partially finances ITP Aero's 2025-2033 Investment Plan, which is centred on decarbonisation R&D — electrification, hydrogen propulsion, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) — as the company targets net-zero climate impact by 2050. ICO states ITP Aero engines power 40% of all annual commercial aircraft engine deliveries and that over 5,000 of its engines are currently in service.

The European Commission approved, under EU State aid rules, a EUR 1.2 billion Dutch scheme known as NIKI (Nationale Investeringsregeling Klimaatprojecten Industrie) on 20 May 2025. Administered by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the scheme funds direct grants to industrial enterprises (manufacturing, waste management and remediation activities, SBI code C and E-37/38.2) that cut lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions, and is the first EU State aid measure to run direct decarbonisation projects and resource-efficiency/circularity projects in the same competitive bidding process. Aid is awarded competitively by lowest euros requested per tonne of CO2-equivalent abated; each project must achieve a minimum lifecycle GHG reduction of 100,000 tonnes and request at least EUR 30 million in aid. The scheme runs through 31 December 2029.

On 13 May 2025, Spain's state-owned promotional bank Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) and Brazil's national development bank BNDES signed a financing agreement worth up to USD 200 million under ICO's standing "Línea ICO Canal Internacional" facility, to fund projects of Spanish-linked companies operating in Brazil. It is the third such ICO-BNDES agreement, focused on energy-efficiency, sustainable transport, industrial decarbonisation, and digitalisation projects, and extends eligibility to BNDES clients and other foreign firms with commercial ties to Spanish companies.

Spain's Ministry of Industry and Tourism (MINCOTUR) provisionally approved EUR 90 million in grants across five industrial-decarbonisation projects under Line 4 of the PERTE Descarbonización (Spain's Recovery-and-Resilience-Plan-funded strategic decarbonisation programme). The largest award, EUR 60 million, went to Hydnum Puertollano (Ciudad Real) for a green-steel mill; other recipients were Biotérmica Villanueva (EUR 12m for a biomass plant converting orange waste to energy in Huelva, plus EUR 4.6m for an olive-pomace renewable-energy plant in Lebrija, Sevilla), Alier (EUR 9.6m, sustainable recycled-paper production in Zaragoza), and Cimsa Cementos España (EUR 3.7m, emissions reduction in Buñol, Valencia cement manufacturing). The announcement, made by Industry Minister Jordi Hereu on 23 April 2025, brought total PERTE Descarbonización disbursement to approximately EUR 570 million across 93 projects nationwide.

The Danish Energy Agency (Energistyrelsen) opened "Investeringsstøtten" (Investment Support), a DKK 1 billion grant pool running 2025-2030, targeting the CO2-intensive companies most exposed to Denmark's phased-in industrial CO2 tax. Eligible firms must emit on average at least 1,500 tonnes of CO2/year and see tax payments rise by at least 2.3% of gross value added under the new levy. In its first annual tranche (2025), the pool disbursed DKK 36 million, funding up to 60% of eligible costs at a rate of DKK 1,000 per tonne of CO2 abated for investments such as fossil-fuel boiler replacement with heat pumps or district heating. Qualifying sectors include general industrial processes, mineralogical processing, oil refining, domestic shipping ("indenrigssøfart" — including domestic ferries), and North Sea offshore activity. Legal basis is the "Aftale om Grøn skattereform for industri mv." (Green Tax Reform Agreement for Industry) of 22 June 2022, implemented via a Danish executive order (bekendtgørelse) on CO2-reduction subsidies for CO2-intensive enterprises, and notified to the European Commission under the General Block Exemption Regulation (EU) No. 651/2014.