Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

On 9 December 2025, Saudi Arabia's Local Content & Government Procurement Authority (LCGPA) issued the December 2025 batch expansion of its Mandatory List — a binding instrument requiring government entities, state-owned enterprises, and sub-contractors to source listed products exclusively from Saudi domestic manufacturers meeting the LCGPA-defined local-content threshold. The December 2025 expansion brings the list to approximately 1,444 national products across 16 sectors, effective 1 March 2026, with LCGPA targeting a total of approximately 2,000 products by end-2026. The Mandatory List operationalises the demand-side layer of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 / National Industrial Strategy (NIS) industrial-policy stack, directly restricting foreign-supplier access to Saudi annual government-procurement budgets estimated at SAR 500 billion+ across central government, Aramco, PIF-portfolio entities, Ma'aden, SEC, STC, Saudi Post, and Saudi Railway.

On 1 December 2025, Saudi Arabia's Local Content & Government Procurement Authority (LCGPA) signed localization and knowledge-transfer agreements with four domestic manufacturers — Al-Sweedy Electric, Al-Sahel Company, Al-Zamel Company, and Composite Materials Company — to establish local production of polymer (fibre-composite) street-lighting poles, displacing imported metal and plastic poles. The initiative was run as a competitive "localization opportunity" tender (opened via LCGPA's Localization of Industry & Knowledge Transfer program, submissions closed 14 February 2025) under the sponsorship of the Public Investment Fund's Oil Sustainability Program, which promotes polymer/composite substitutes for hydrocarbon-linked feedstocks. Once qualifying domestic production is established, the product is slated for addition to LCGPA's Mandatory List, which would require government entities, SOEs, and their sub-contractors to source the item exclusively from the approved local manufacturers.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Japan's state export-credit and outbound-investment finance institution, signed a loan agreement on 2025-07-25 (announced 2025-09-24) providing GBP 54 million toward a total co-financed package of GBP 90 million (with a private financial institution) for Sumitomo Electric U.K. Power Cables Ltd. (SEUK-CL), the UK subsidiary of Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (Japan). The facility finances SEUK-CL's manufacturing and sale of submarine transmission cables in Scotland. JBIC framed the loan around the UK's offshore-wind buildout (Scotland targets up to 11 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030) and the UK's position as Europe's largest submarine-cable market, alongside Sumitomo Electric's own Mid-Term Management Plan priority of expanding high-voltage direct-current cable capacity in Europe.

Italy's state investment agency Invitalia approved a "Contratto di Sviluppo" (Development Contract) worth EUR 103.7 million in total investment for Italian Green Factory SpA (Tea Tek group), of which EUR 67 million is Invitalia state aid (financial grant plus state loan) on eligible costs, with a further EUR 29 million routed through the Fondo di Garanzia PMI (SME Guarantee Fund). The package reindustrialises the former Whirlpool site in Naples and a second plant in Pomigliano d'Arco for photovoltaic (solar) component production, plus two smaller R&D projects (predictive diagnostics for electrical transformers/panels; walkable solar installations for road infrastructure). The plan commits to retaining 294 previously-displaced Whirlpool workers and adding 55 new hires (349 total).

Ley Nº 7546/2025, promulgated by President Santiago Peña and published in Paraguay's Gaceta Oficial Nº 205 on 8 September 2025, establishes Paraguay's first sector-specific national industrial-policy statute for the production and assembly of electrical, electronic, electromechanical, and digital equipment. The law designates this sector as a strategic productive priority and provides the policy umbrella for targeted incentive instruments operationalised under two companion statutes enacted the same day: Ley 7547/2025 (Maquila Regime overhaul) and Ley 7548/2025 (New Fiscal Incentive Regime for Investment). It mandates MIC to develop technical standards in coordination with INTN and establishes a dual on-site / off-site monitoring system for qualifying investment projects.

India's Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), a central public-sector power utility under the Ministry of Power, issued Tender Document No. DVC/Tender/Head Quarter/SPE/CMM/Works and Service/00077/Capital on 20 August 2025 for the survey, design, supply, and replacement of existing conductors with high-temperature low-sag (HTLS) conductors on its 132kV D/C transmission lines. The tender restricts eligibility to 'Class-I local suppliers' under India's Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017, giving domestic manufacturers a bid-evaluation advantage in the electrical-equipment/civil-engineering procurement category. Global Trade Alert records the intervention as announced/implemented 20 August 2025; the underlying contract value and full tender scope sit behind GTA's account-gated view and were not independently confirmed via trade press.

On 19 August 2025, Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments Limited (REIL) — a joint venture of the Government of India and the Government of Rajasthan — invited bids for a rate contract covering the survey, design, supply, erection, testing and commissioning of 25 MW of grid-connected rooftop solar PV systems on government buildings. The tender embeds a domestic-content preference under India's Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017, requiring solar PV modules and inverters to be sourced from Class-I local suppliers. GTA records the intervention as announced/implemented 19 August 2025.

On 12 August 2025, THDC India Limited — a Mini Ratna public-sector enterprise under India's Ministry of Power — invited bids for a 53.9 MWac/72.8 MWp ground-mounted solar PV project (with three years of O&M) to be built within the premises of Karnataka Power Corporation Limited's Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS), at an estimated cost of INR 220.24 crore including GST. The tender embeds a domestic-content preference under India's Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017, restricting bidders to "Class-I local suppliers" and requiring solar modules and cells to be sourced from the government's Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM). GTA records the intervention as announced/implemented 12 August 2025.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a EUR 250 million financing package with Nexans SA on 31 July 2025 (project reference 20240854, "Nexans Recycling and Electrification Investment"; publicly announced 22 September 2025), against a total project cost of approximately EUR 382 million. The loan backs Nexans' 2024-2029 research, development and innovation programme for high-, medium- and low-voltage power cables, plus copper-recycling and manufacturing-capacity investments across France, Belgium, Sweden and Norway. The financing is structured as a EUR 190 million tranche carrying an InvestEU guarantee and a EUR 60 million second tranche.

President Trump signed Proclamation 10962 on 30 July 2025, imposing a 50% Section 232 tariff on imports of semi-finished copper products (pipes, wires, rods, sheets, tubes, foils) and copper-intensive derivative products (cables, connectors, electrical components, pipe fittings) effective 12:01 a.m. ET on 1 August 2025. The proclamation also authorises the Commerce Secretary to impose a 25% domestic-sales requirement and export controls on high-quality copper scrap, and lays out a phased schedule for refined-copper tariffs (15% from 1 Jan 2027, 30% from 1 Jan 2028) contingent on a Commerce review report due 30 June 2026. Copper input materials (ores, concentrates, cathodes, anodes) and copper scrap itself are exempt from the 50% tariff. The original 90-day "inclusions" process for expanding the derivative list was terminated by a follow-on April 2026 proclamation that consolidated authority with Commerce + USTR.

South Africa's ITAC, acting on an application from STI Electrical (Pty) Ltd, recommended increasing the general customs duty on transformer cores with a power handling capacity not exceeding 50,000 KVA (tariff subheading 8504.90, split into new lines 8504.90.10 and 8504.90.90) from 5% to 15% ad valorem — the WTO bound rate. SARS gave effect to the change via a Schedule No. 1 tariff amendment effective 27 June 2025. As a SACU common external tariff, the increase applies across South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia. ITAC found the domestic industry's production and sales volumes had declined over the investigation period and that it was price-uncompetitive against imports, and recommended a three-year review of industry performance post-implementation.

Pakistan's Federal Cabinet approved the National Tariff Policy 2025-30 (NTP 2025-30) in June 2025, with operative tariff reforms incorporated into the Finance Act 2025 effective 1 July 2025. The NTP restructures Pakistan's customs duty (CD) slab architecture from five slabs (0/3/11/16/20%) to four flatter slabs (0/5/10/15%) by FY2029-30, while phasing out Regulatory Duties (RDs) and Additional Customs Duties (ACDs) on 7,000+ tariff lines over four to five years. The policy targets cutting the trade-weighted average tariff from ~10.6% to below 6% and the simple-average tariff from 19% to 9.5% by 2030, underpinned by GTAP projections of 10–14% export growth and 5–6% import growth. Prepared in coordination with IMF technical assistance under the USD 7 billion EFF, the NTP is the statutory anchor for the sequence of Finance-Act SRO-based sectoral tariff revisions covering textiles/MMF, iron-and-steel, and chemicals/intermediates through FY2029-30.

On 30 May 2025, South Africa's Minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, announced five preferred bidders under Bid Window 3 of the Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP), covering up to 616 MW/2,464 MWh of battery storage capacity across five sites in the Free State supply area, representing R9.5 billion in investment. Award of preferred-bidder status is conditioned on binding local-content and economic-empowerment requirements: minimum 40% black shareholding in each IPP project company, up to 30% black shareholding by construction contractors (up to 42% in operations), over R3.7 billion in local content spend during construction and operations, and R184 million ring-fenced for supplier development and skills training. Reuters/industry reporting identifies Mulilo (four sites) and Scatec of Norway (one site) as the winning IPPs.