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

New Zealand's Regional Infrastructure Fund (RIF), administered by Grow Regions, approved a loan of up to NZD 35 million to Wellington-based fusion-energy startup OpenStar Technologies. The loan funds a purpose-built research facility for OpenStar's next-generation fusion machine ("Tahi"), intended to scale up its R&D programme, attract further international investment and anchor high-value engineering jobs in New Zealand. The government frames the measure as a strategic bet on fusion as a potential long-term energy-security and economic asset.

The British Business Bank, the UK government's state-owned economic development bank, committed up to GBP 50 million as a cornerstone investor in IQ Capital Fund V, announced 20 January 2026. The commitment is operated by British Patient Capital Limited, the Bank's commercial subsidiary, and is the Bank's seventh consecutive cornerstone commitment to an IQ Capital fund since Fund I in 2006. IQ Capital is a UK early-stage deep tech venture capital firm investing across AI & Automation, Computing & Semiconductors, Health & Bio, Advanced Engineering & Energy, and Security & Resilience.

China's Ministry of Finance, NDRC, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, People's Bank of China and National Financial Regulatory Administration jointly issued Cai Jin [2026] No. 4 on 2026-01-19, establishing a central-fiscal loan interest-subsidy scheme for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) operating in 14 designated industrial-chain and emerging-industry sectors. Eligible loans originated from 2026-01-01 receive a 1.5-percentage-point annual interest subsidy for up to two years, capped at RMB 50 million in principal per enterprise (maximum subsidy RMB 1.5 million per enterprise). The policy is tentatively set to run one year with a possible extension.

On 26 December 2025, Japan's Cabinet approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) initial budget, which allocates a new JPY 415 billion (~USD 2.7bn) line to the "Low-Carbon Hydrogen Hub Development Support Project" (低炭素水素 等拠点整備支援事業), administered by METI's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) through JOGMEC under the Hydrogen Society Promotion Act framework enacted in 2024. The programme subsidises Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) and construction costs for shared transport and storage infrastructure -- tanks, pipelines and receiving-terminal equipment -- built jointly by multiple businesses to move low-carbon hydrogen and its derivatives (ammonia, e-methane, synthetic fuels) from import/production points to industrial users. It sits alongside, but is administratively distinct from, JOGMEC's separately-run "price-gap" (kakakusa) 15-year CfD offtake support for hydrogen suppliers. The budget takes effect with Japan's fiscal year on 1 April 2026, subject to ordinary Diet passage in early 2026.

The European Investment Bank signed the first EUR 231 million tranche (EUR 16m + EUR 50m + EUR 165m) of a EUR 271 million green loan to Italy's Sunprime Holdings Srl on 22 December 2025, under the EIB-approved "Project Sophocles" solar-and-battery programme (project reference 20250247, approved 27 August 2025). The financing backs a EUR 487 million multi-year investment programme deploying roughly 280 MWp of small-scale solar PV across multiple Italian sites plus 80 MW and 270 MW of four-hour battery energy storage. A further EUR 40 million tranche signed in February 2026, and the programme was subsequently expanded to a EUR 507 million EIB/Natixis CIB co-financing package announced in March 2026. Global Trade Alert logs the December tranche as a "red" state-loan intervention on grounds that below-market EIB financing is a trade- and competition-distorting subsidy to a domestic renewable-energy developer.

The UK Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) announced on 3 December 2025 a GBP 10 million grant toward the GBP 20 million "IGNITED" project, led by Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains (HPP), to develop an ultra-compact, high-power electric drive system for high-performance EVs drawing on Mercedes' Formula 1 power-unit engineering. UK partners YASA Ltd (axial-flux motor technology) and DePe Gear Company Ltd are involved, with work based in Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. The project is expected to create over 150 new jobs and secure 34 existing roles, with production targeted within three years.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank provided a CAD 139.5 million (approx. USD 99.4 million) loan to BC Hydro, a provincial Crown utility, to fund the early-works phase of the North Coast Transmission Line (NCTL) in northwest British Columbia. Early works cover project planning, engineering, fieldwork, procurement, First Nations consultation and stakeholder engagement ahead of construction. The financing responds to anticipated electricity demand growth from port operations, mining (including critical-minerals projects), hydrogen production, LNG and technology sectors that is expected to exceed the capacity of the region's existing single 500-kV transmission line from Prince George to Terrace.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES signed BRL 2.3 billion (~USD 425 million) in credit-line financing with Volkswagen do Brasil on 31 October 2025 at a ceremony at the Anchieta plant (São Bernardo do Campo, SP). The package draws on two BNDES lines: BNDES Mais Inovação, financing development of Volkswagen's hybrid (mild-hybrid, full-hybrid, plug-in-hybrid) vehicle portfolio and ADAS/connectivity engineering projects; and Exim Pré-Embarque, a pre-shipment export-finance line to expand Volkswagen's exports. Volkswagen is Brazil's largest automotive exporter (4.4 million units shipped since 1970 across 147 markets), with exports up 43% year-on-year in Jan-Sep 2025.

The California Energy Commission approved a USD 25 million grant to SE US Development LLC (SB Energy) under the state's Distributed Electricity Backup Assets (DEBA) program, adopted via resolution at the Commission's October 8, 2025 business meeting (Agreement DBA-25-002). The grant partially funds a 75MW/300MWh slice of a planned 400MW/1,600MWh lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) that SB Energy is retrofitting to its existing 450MWac Athos Solar I + II complex in Riverside County. SB Energy is separately funding roughly USD 10.5 million of the BESS installation cost, with the CEC grant covering the bulk of battery procurement plus a smaller allocation to engineering and construction management; funds must be spent by June 30, 2030 to be reimbursed.

The US Department of Defense announced a USD 10 million Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III award to Elk Creek Resources Corp (ECRC), a subsidiary of NioCorp Developments Ltd, to advance a domestic "mine-to-master-alloy" scandium supply chain at the Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in Nebraska. The funds support feasibility-level engineering, additional reserve drilling and updated cost estimates for the polymetallic deposit (scandium, niobium, titanium and rare earths), and support integration of aluminum-scandium master alloy into aerospace platforms alongside a defense prime contractor. The award notes the US has not mined scandium since 1969 and that current global scandium supply is overwhelmingly foreign-sourced, with China the dominant producer.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) committed AUD 44.9 million to Calix Limited to build a demonstration plant for its Zero Emissions Steel Technology (ZESTY), targeting up to 30,000 tonnes per year of low-carbon hydrogen direct reduced iron (HDRI) and hot briquetted iron (HBI) using renewable electricity and hydrogen instead of coking coal. The funding builds on prior ARENA-funded engineering studies and also supports early-stage engineering for a larger commercial-scale ZESTY plant, positioning low-emissions iron/steel as a strategic priority industry for Australia.

The New Development Bank (NDB) Board of Directors approved a RMB 1.448 billion (~CNY 1.45 billion, ~USD 200 million) sovereign loan to the People's Republic of China on 14 July 2025 to finance the Shanxi Taiyuan Wusu Zero-Carbon Airport Project. The project will convert Taiyuan Wusu International Airport into China's first zero-carbon airport via over 100 MW of installed solar capacity, a pilot PV-Energy Storage-Direct Current-Flexible Loads (PEDF) system, and 100% renewable-based heating and cooling — a first among China's regional hub-scale airports. Shanxi Aviation Industry New Energy Company (SAINE), a joint venture of Shanxi Aviation Industry Group (SAIG) and two government-owned geological-engineering and industrial-construction enterprises, will implement the project between 2025 and 2029. NDB below-market development-bank pricing functions as an indirect state-adjacent subsidy for the build-out.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) committed AUD 19.8 million to the NeoSmelt joint venture to fund a front-end engineering design (FEED) study for a direct reduced iron-electric smelting furnace (DRI-ESF) pilot plant at Kwinana, Western Australia, aimed at proving Pilbara iron ore can be converted into lower-carbon iron without a coking-coal blast furnace. The consortium, founded by BlueScope, BHP and Rio Tinto, welcomed Woodside Energy and Mitsui Iron Ore Development as new equal-equity participants alongside the grant announcement. Total project cost is AUD 48.85 million, with the study running from May 2025 to August 2026 ahead of a targeted final investment decision.