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On 19 December 2025 the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government issued Notice 深府规〔2025〕10号, "Implementation Measures for Further Attracting and Utilizing Foreign Investment" (effective 1 January 2026 - 31 December 2028, superseding 深府规〔2024〕6号). The measures combine market-access steps (advanced-manufacturing FDI access, foreign biomedicine clinical trials, cross-border data-flow pilots) with tiered cash rewards for foreign direct investment: up to RMB 50 million/year (cumulative cap RMB 150 million) for large manufacturing FDI, RMB 5-8 million one-time awards for multinational regional/global headquarters, and up to RMB 6 million one-time awards for foreign-invested R&D centers. Global Trade Alert logged the same state act as two separate interventions split by sector tag.

On 19 December 2025 the Swiss Federal Assembly adopted in final vote the Federal Act on the Screening of Foreign Investments (Bundesgesetz über die Prüfung ausländischer Investitionen, Investitionsprüfgesetz / IPG; popularly the "Lex China", parliamentary business 22.035). The Act introduces Switzerland's first general ex-ante FDI-screening regime: acquisitions of control over Swiss companies active in security-critical sectors by foreign state-controlled investors require prior approval by SECO, with escalation to the Federal Council. The optional- referendum window runs until 17 April 2026; entry into force is not expected before 2027 once implementing ordinances are adopted. Critical sectors named in the Act include military and dual-use goods, electricity grids and generation, water supply, pharma and health, telecommunications, transport infrastructure and financial-market infrastructure.

The European Commission approved a €4.1 billion Hungarian state aid scheme (SA.120705) under Section 6.1 of the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), authorising grants and tax advantages for strategic investments that add cleantech-manufacturing capacity across Hungary through 31 December 2030. Eligible activities cover net-zero technologies listed in Annex II of the CISAF — batteries, solar PV, wind turbines, electrolysers, heat pumps, and CCUS equipment — plus their main specific components and the production or recovery of related critical raw materials. The scheme is open to companies across the whole territory of Hungary and is the CISAF-era successor to Hungary's EUR 2.36 billion TCTF net-zero scheme (approved 2023-08-30, aid deadline 31 December 2025), which channelled the bulk of Chinese and Korean battery/EV-supply-chain FDI into the Debrecen–Szeged–Göd–Nyíregyháza industrial cluster.

On 11 December 2025 the Council of the EU presidency, the European Parliament, and the European Commission reached provisional political (trilogue) agreement on the revision of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union, concluding interinstitutional negotiations on the Commission's proposal of 24 January 2024. The revised regime upgrades the 2019 cooperation-mechanism-only framework into a hybrid harmonised/mandatory regime: all 27 Member States must establish FDI screening mechanisms (replacing the current patchwork in which some Member States have no mechanism at all); mandatory minimum sectoral scope is set EU-wide and covers dual-use items, military equipment, hyper-critical technologies (general-purpose AI with space/defence relevance, quantum technologies, semiconductors), critical raw materials, critical entities in energy/transport/digital infrastructure, electoral infrastructure, and certain financial-system entities; foreign investments routed through EU subsidiaries fall within the perimeter; a shared database prevents Member-State arbitrage; and an optional single electronic-filing portal becomes available if requested by at least nine Member States. Screening decisions remain the exclusive responsibility of the Member State in which the investment is made. Once the Regulation enters into force (after Council and Parliament formal adoption and OJ publication, both pending as of the political-agreement date), the new rules will apply after an 18-month transition period — implementation expected toward the end of 2027.

Vietnam's 15th National Assembly adopted the Law on Investment 2025 (Law No. 143/2025/QH15) at its 10th session on 11 December 2025, effective 1 March 2026. The law replaces the 2020 Law on Investment (Law 61/2020/QH14) as the umbrella FDI framework. Article 19 lets foreign investors establish enterprises in Vietnam without a prior investment project, unlocking holding-company / regional-headquarters structures. A fast-track Special Investment Procedure (SIP) covers industrial parks, export-processing zones, hi-tech parks, concentrated digital-technology zones, free-trade zones, international financial centres and economic-zone functional areas, targeting semiconductor, data-centre and 5G/digital-infrastructure capex. Appendix IV abolishes 38 conditional business sectors and adjusts 20 others (from 1 July 2026 only 199 conditional sectors remain). Operationalised by Decree 96/2026/ND-CP (issued and effective 31 March 2026) and Decree 103/2026/ND-CP for outbound investment.

The UAE Cabinet, chaired by Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at a special meeting during the Dubai Airshow, approved the establishment of a National Investment Fund with initial capital of AED 36.7 billion (~USD 10 billion), open to future review and expansion. The Fund provides financial incentive packages to companies capable of delivering significant economic impact, via direct federal-level financing and cooperation with emirate-level economic, investment and tourism authorities. It targets raising annual FDI inflows from AED 115bn to AED 240bn, and cumulative FDI stock from AED 800bn to AED 2.2 trillion, by 2031.

Cyprus Law 194(I)/2025 "The Establishment of a Framework for the Screening of Foreign Direct Investments Law of 2025" was enacted by the House of Representatives and published in the Official Gazette on 14 November 2025, entering into force on 2 April 2026. It establishes Cyprus's first-ever mandatory pre-approval FDI screening regime, designating the Ministry of Finance as the competent Screening Authority and applying to non-EU/EEA/Swiss investors acquiring ≥25% equity or voting rights in Cyprus entities valued at ≥€2 million across covered strategic sectors. The regime implements EU Regulation 2019/452 and includes a Cyprus-specific sectoral extension covering tourism and real estate — addressing golden-passport-era concerns about non-EU capital flows into the island's financial and hospitality economy.

The Hrvatski sabor (Croatian Parliament) unanimously adopted the Act on Screening of Foreign Direct Investments on 24 October 2025; the law was published in Narodne Novine 136/2025 and entered into force on 13 November 2025. It establishes Croatia's first-ever statutory horizontal FDI-screening regime, implementing EU Regulation 2019/452 in Croatian law. The Act captures direct or indirect acquisitions by non-EU investors of at least 10 % of share capital, voting rights or property rights in Croatian entities operating in sensitive sectors (defence, dual-use, critical infrastructure, critical minerals, emerging tech, sensitive personal data, energy, transport, health, digital infrastructure, media, financial services). The reviewing authority must decide within 120 days, exceptionally 150 days, of a complete application. Croatia was one of the last EU Member States without a horizontal screening law.

On 18 October 2025 the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania adopted a package of amendments to the Defence and Security Industry Law (XIV-2647, originally adopted May 2024), the Law on Public Procurement in Security and Defence, the Law on Control of Weapons and Ammunition, and cross-cutting territorial-planning and construction laws. The central measure, proposed by the Ministry of Economy and Innovation (EIMIN), replaces the full construction-permit requirement for defence-production facilities with a notification-of-commencement procedure, compressing typical procurement-to-groundbreaking timelines from approximately 2–2.5 years to a few months. Complementary provisions reserve public-land investment plots for defence projects, enable defence-industry development outside designated military territories, and enshrine industrial cooperation as a procurement principle requiring foreign OEMs fulfilling Lithuanian defence contracts to source a defined share of obligations from Lithuanian-registered entities. The package directly enables inbound defence-industrial FDI from Rheinmetall (155 mm artillery-shell JV) and the Northrop Grumman / Nammo medium-calibre ammunition programme at the state-owned Giraitė Armament Factory.

Denmark's Folketing enacted Lov nr. 1097 af 15 September 2025, introduced by the Forsvarsministeriet under the September 2025 defence agreement (forsvarsforlig), establishing a statutory fast-track framework that exempts building/construction projects and operational activities serving significant national-defence or civil-emergency-preparedness purposes from standard requirements including building permits and environmental approvals. The law enables a Forsvarsministeriet-issued administrative derogation from spatial-planning and environmental law where necessary to achieve the project's objectives, directly operationalising Denmark's 50 billion DKK Defence Acceleration Fund capacity build-out. A sunset clause causes the law to expire automatically at end-2028. First confirmed applications include a new national ammunition production facility in Elling (north Jutland) and a factory in Vojens (south Jutland) for solid-propellant rocket-motor production by Ukrainian company Fire Point — the latter representing cross-border defence-industrial FDI from a non-EU operator into a NATO member state for a strategically sensitive propellant category.

Paraguay promulgated Ley Nº 7548/2025 on 8 September 2025, establishing a modernised fiscal-incentive regime for national and foreign investment that replaces the 35-year-old Ley 60/90 framework. The statute extends IDU (dividend-distribution tax) exemptions to domestic investors — equalising treatment with foreign-owned enterprises for the first time — and provides customs-duty and VAT exemptions on capital goods, raw materials, and inputs for qualifying investment projects approved via bi-ministerial resolution by MIC and MEF. The law is the third pillar of Paraguay's September 2025 industrial-policy reset, companion to Ley 7546/2025 (electronics sector strategy) and Ley 7547/2025 (maquila regime overhaul), and anchors the Peña administration's FDI-promotion architecture with explicit fiscal-stability guarantees and tiered regional/sectoral premium support.

On 3 September 2025 the Qianhai Authority (前海管理局) issued 深前海规〔2025〕4号, "Measures to Support R&D Centre Development (Trial)", effective 13 September 2025, the first Shenzhen-district-level policy dedicated specifically to R&D centres. Qualifying R&D centres receive a one-time R&D reserve-fund grant of up to RMB 2 million (paid 40/30/30% over three years), with multinational global R&D centres eligible for an additional RMB 6 million. Centres also receive rent relief on Qianhai office space (up to two years free for MNC global R&D centres), a subsidy of up to RMB 3 million/year (20% of qualifying R&D spend), a reduced 15% corporate income tax rate, and technology-breakthrough project grants of up to RMB 30 million (open-competition projects) or RMB 100 million (feasibility-study projects) via Shenzhen's municipal key-industry R&D programme. Distinct from the broader Shenzhen Municipal Government FDI-attraction package (深府规〔2025〕10号, effective 2026-01-01, filed separately) — this is a Qianhai free-trade-zone-level scheme targeting R&D centres specifically, issued three months earlier by a different authority.

Act L of 2025 (2025. évi L. törvény) is the Hungarian National Assembly statute that elevates a set of war-emergency government decrees — including the foreign-investment screening regime previously embedded in Government Decree 561/2022 — to permanent statutory level. Promulgated in Magyar Közlöny and entered into force on 19 August 2025, the Act preserves Hungary's "Second Regime" of FDI screening operating in parallel with the General Regime (which implements EU Reg 2019/452 since 2019). The Second Regime applies to a broad set of strategic sectors — energy, transport, communications, telecoms, pharmaceuticals, food processing, defence, financial services and healthcare — and requires approval from the Minister of National Economy for qualifying acquisitions (direct or indirect majority, ≥5% interest, ≥3% in listed companies, or ownership/operation of strategic infrastructure) where transaction value reaches HUF 350 million (~EUR 890,000). Notification is due within 10 days of signing; the MoE originally had 30 business days (extendable +15 calendar days). The Act also entrenches the Hungarian state right of first refusal on photovoltaic generation companies (NACE 35.11'08, excluding sub-50 kVA household installations), exercised through MNV Zrt. The Special Regime is structurally distinct from the General Regime and represents Hungary's peer to the German AWG §§55-62, French Décret 2014-479, Dutch Wet Vifo, and Italian Golden Power. Amended by Act XCIII of 2025 (in force 17 December 2025), which extended the MoE screening deadline to 45 business days and excluded bank-financing security arrangements from notification.

Czech Act No. 265/2025 Sb., promulgated in the Sbírka zákonů on 4 August 2025 and entering into force on 1 November 2025, is the first material amendment of the Czech Republic's foundational FDI screening statute (Act No. 34/2021 Sb.) since its enactment. The amendment broadens the perimeter of mandatory pre-closing FDI screening by cross-referencing the simultaneously-enacted Cybersecurity Act (Act No. 264/2025 Sb., transposing NIS2 Directive 2022/2555): entities designated as providers of "regulated services" under the Cybersecurity Act's "regime of higher obligation" automatically fall within mandatory FDI-screening scope, extending screening reach beyond the prior military-material / dual-use / critical-infrastructure perimeter to cover a broad sweep of digital, technology, healthcare, energy, and financial-services operators. The amendment also adds a confidentiality-sharing channel between MPO and NÚKIB, enabling coordinated supply-chain-security assessments for high-risk-vendor reviews under the new Cybersecurity Act.

On 18 July 2025 Kazakhstan's Parliament adopted Law No. 215-VIII ZRK "On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Taxation Matters," which abolishes the legacy priority-investment-project and special-investment-contract regimes under the Entrepreneurial Code and replaces them with three new contractual instruments — the Investment Agreement, the Investment Obligations Agreement, and the Simplified Investment Contract — effective 1 January 2026. The law is the binding legal operationalisation of the October 2024 Concept of Investment Policy until 2029 (filed), the US-Kazakhstan Critical Minerals MOU of November 2025 (filed), and the EU-Kazakhstan Strategic Partnership Roadmap 2025-2026 (filed), providing a contractual-certainty architecture for the USD 150 billion FDI-attraction target that previous "priority investment project" frameworks lacked. A statutory effectiveness-evaluation obligation (first of its kind in Central Asia) for assessing the socio-economic impact of granted investment preferences enters force separately on 1 July 2026.

On 14 July 2025 President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in his capacity as Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, signed four gazette notifications designating IFC Colombo 1 (Private) Limited, Ceylon Real Estate Holdings (Private) Limited, Clothespin Management and Development (Private) Limited, and ICC Port City (Private) Limited as "Primary Businesses of Strategic Importance" inside the Colombo Port City Special Economic Zone, established under the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Act No. 21 of 2021. Cumulatively the four projects represent approximately USD 1.2 billion of inbound FDI commitments, with IFC Colombo 1 (a China Harbour Engineering Company / CHEC Port City Colombo subsidiary) alone committing USD 142.71 million and Ceylon Real Estate Holdings (a Browns Investments PLC subsidiary) committing a real-estate complex on 30,629.92 sqm. The original gazettes granted 35-year exemptions under the Inland Revenue Act (running to 13 July 2060) and ~25-year exemptions under the Value Added Tax Act, Finance Acts (Nos. 11 of 2002 and 5 of 2005), Excise (Special Provisions) Act, Customs Ordinance, Ports and Airports Development Levy Act and Sri Lanka Export Development Act, conditional on each designee executing its land-lease agreement with the Commission within six months of gazette publication.

The Assembly of Albania (Kuvendi i Republikës së Shqipërisë) adopted Law No. 56/2025 on 11 July 2025, published in Fletorja Zyrtare (Official Gazette) No. 124 of the same date, amending Article 10 of Law No. 7764/1993 "On Foreign Investments" to introduce Albania's first-ever mandatory FDI screening mechanism. The law requires investors to submit applications for screening of any foreign investment "related to or affecting critical public infrastructure, critical technologies, dual-use goods, supply of critical inputs, access to sensitive information, or media freedom" — categories aligned with EU Regulation 2019/452 — while delegating thresholds, timelines, and procedural safeguards to a forthcoming Decision of the Council of Ministers (DCM). Albania becomes the first country in the Western Balkans to establish an investment-screening regime aligned with EU Regulation 2019/452, opening a new issuer-country code (AL) on the IPTM register and anchoring a regional cluster that currently stands at RS=1, MK=0, BA=0, ME=0, XK=0.

The Polish Sejm passed the Act of 9 July 2025 amending the Act of 24 July 2015 on the Control of Certain Investments, signed by the President on 21 July 2025 and effective 24 July 2025. The amendment removes the time-limited "Specialised Rules" tier (introduced in 2020 under the Anti-COVID Shield) and makes Poland's FDI screening regime permanent. Review competence is transferred from the President of UOKiK (the competition authority) to the minister responsible for economic affairs (currently the Minister of Finance and Economy), and a new trigger covering "an international situation distorting the market or competition" is added alongside the existing public-order, security and health grounds.

Government Decree 163/2025 (VI. 23.) amends the emergency-era Decree 561/2022 (XII. 23.) on economic-protection deviations, making two operative changes to Hungary's FDI screening regime: it extends the review period from 30 to up to 135 working days (45-day base plus three 30-workday extensions) and introduces a state pre-emption right, exercisable within 90 calendar days of a prohibition decision, allowing MNV Zrt. (Hungarian National Asset Management Company) or a designated entity to acquire the blocked target on the same terms as the original parties. The decree applies retroactively to all notification procedures pending at the time of entry into force (24 June 2025) and expands the screening scope from a solar-sector focus to broad strategic sectors. It served as an interim bridge — in force from 24 June to 18 August 2025 — until superseded by the permanent statutory codification in Act L of 2025.

Greece enacted Law 5202/2025 on 22 May 2025, published in Government Gazette ΦΕΚ A' 84 on 23 May 2025 and effective the same day, establishing the country's first national mandatory and suspensory foreign direct investment screening mechanism, aligned with Regulation (EU) 2019/452. The Interministerial Committee for the Control of Foreign Direct Investment (ICC-FDI), with initial procedure run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reviews non-EU acquisitions in "sensitive" sectors (energy, transportation, healthcare, ICT, digital infrastructure) and "particularly sensitive" sectors (national security, defence, cybersecurity, AI, ports and critical subsea infrastructure, borderland tourism). A two-phase review applies — 30 days Phase I, up to 150 days Phase II with EU Cooperation Mechanism notification — and the regime became fully operational on 11 November 2025.

Hungary's Government Decree 81/2025 (IV. 17.), published in Magyar Közlöny 2025/45 and effective 18 April 2025, materially rewrites Government Decree 210/2014 (VIII. 27.) — the statutory framework for Hungary's flagship VIP cash-grant programme awarded through individual government decisions ("Egyedi Kormánydöntés", EKD). The amendment reduces minimum investment thresholds in Southern Hungarian counties and smaller countryside locations, refines the asset-based incentive scheme, abolishes the renewable-energy production-investment subsidy, and introduces a new R&D-centre subsidy for medium and large enterprises (≥50 employees, ≥10 new R&D jobs, mandatory formal cooperation agreement with a Hungarian university). EKD is the vehicle through which CATL Debrecen, BYD Szeged, Samsung SDI, and EVE Power received Hungarian state-aid packages — making this decree the framing instrument for the largest single channel of Chinese EV/battery FDI into the European Union.

Sultan Haitham bin Tariq issued Royal Decree 38/2025 on 7 April 2025, published in the Sultanate of Oman Official Gazette on 13 April 2025, enacting a unified statutory framework for Oman's special economic zones (SEZs) and free zones (FZs) under the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ). The law consolidates the previously fragmented regimes governing Duqm SEZ, Salalah Free Zone, Sohar Free Zone, Al Mazunah Free Zone, and Knowledge Oasis Muscat into a single overarching statutory architecture, granting a 10-year corporate income tax exemption (renewable for high-value activities), 100% foreign ownership, full capital and profit repatriation, customs-duty exemptions on construction inputs and operational goods, and a statutory one-stop-shop through OPAZ. The law establishes OPAZ as the consolidated regulatory authority with ring-fenced powers over labour, immigration, customs, environment, and land-use within zone boundaries, and creates a new statutory basis for OPAZ to negotiate sector-specific concessions using usufruct, leasehold, and sub-concession instruments. Royal Decree 38/2025 is the principal Vision 2040 FDI-architecture instrument — the parent statute under which the GFCL Salalah LFP battery-materials usufruct, the Hyport Duqm green-ammonia project, and the Karwa Motors EV-assembly arrangement all operate.

Japan's Cabinet approved an amendment to the Cabinet Order on Inward Direct Investment under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA) on 1 April 2025; the order was promulgated 4 April 2025 and entered into force 19 May 2025. The amendment introduces two new investor categories — Type-A (investors legally or contractually obligated to share information with foreign governments) and Type-B (investors effectively in a comparable position without formal legal obligation) — and eliminates or narrows exemptions from mandatory prior-notification screening for both categories. The primary driver is concern over minority-stake acquisitions by Chinese investors in Japanese listed companies operating in sensitive sectors including cloud computing, telecommunications infrastructure, semiconductor equipment, and advanced electronics. The reform is structurally distinct from the outbound FEFTA catch-all controls overhaul (2025-10-09) and from the Economic Security Promotion Act (2022-05-18); it is the inbound FDI-screening complement to that framework.

Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandon issued Order No. 06/PM on 7 March 2025 introducing two headline measures: (i) a permanent nationwide ban on all alluvial gold extraction, including gravel- and sand-suction methods, and (ii) a moratorium on approval of any new metallic-mineral projects for the remainder of the current government term. The Order also mandates enhanced monitoring and inspection of existing licensed mining operations, with particular focus on environmental compliance and remediation. Rationale cited by the PM includes recurring landslide and water-contamination incidents attributed to unregulated artisanal and semi-industrial extraction. This is the first instrument issued under the post-2024-Investment-Promotion-Law framework that directly constrains new-mine pipeline development in Laos, reversing the outward-FDI-friendly signal that Law 62/NA had sent to Chinese-backed project sponsors.

On 27 February 2025, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted Law No. 33/2025 amending Law No. 174/2021 on the mechanism for examining investments of importance for state security. The law entered into force on 20 April 2025 after publication in Monitorul Oficial Nr. 144-147 of 20 March 2025 (promulgated by Presidential Decree No. 118-X of 17 March 2025). Key operative changes expand the protected-sector perimeter to explicitly enumerate 17 categories covering data processing and storage, AI, robotics, cybersecurity, semiconductors, quantum, nanotechnology and biotechnology alongside the pre-existing energy, transport, communications, defence and aerospace pillars; add new grounds for refusal (money-laundering suspicion, corruption convictions, foreign-government control, cybersecurity risk, access to personal data of citizens); introduce enhanced Council powers including retroactive review of previously approved investments and fines of up to 5% of annual turnover (capped at MDL 5 million); and carve out intra-group transactions, asset sales below EUR 1 million, and state-owned-enterprise dealings. The Screening Council became operational in July 2025.

Kuwait promulgated Decree-Law No. 7 of 2025 on 10 February 2025, amending Decree-Law No. 74 of 1979 on real estate ownership by non-Kuwaitis. The reform grants investment entities licensed under the Direct Investment Promotion Law (Decree-Law No. 116 of 2013, administered by KDIPA) the right to own real property necessary for carrying out and managing their licensed activities, or for housing their investors or employees — with an explicit prohibition on ownership for speculation purposes. A further Amiri decree will specify the implementing rules and the areas in which such property may be owned. The law is part of a coherent 2024–2025 KDIPA-regime modernisation package alongside the January 2024 branch-office-without-local-agent reform and KDIPA Decision No. 388 of 2024 on investment incentives and exemptions.