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

Minister of Trade Regulation No. 5 of 2026, signed on 26 March 2026 and effective 1 April 2026, is the fourth amendment to Permendag 23/2023 on Export Policy and Regulation. It introduces three substantively significant changes: (i) restricts issuance of Export Approval (Persetujuan Ekspor / PE) for ilmenite and rutile concentrate to holders of IUP/IUPK Operasi Produksi mining permits — eliminating the prior Izin Usaha Industri (IUI) industrial pathway — extending Indonesia's hilirisasi vertical-integration doctrine to titanium feedstock; (ii) removes the Eksportir Terdaftar (ET) registered- exporter requirement for industrial tin exports, simplifying the export chain to PE + Laporan Surveyor (LS) only; (iii) mandates electronic and automatic issuance of PE where the integrated INATRADE/SINSW system documentation is complete, digitising the export-licensing chain. Additional changes tighten kratom ET validity to a three-year cap and reassign marine-species transport- document authority from the Ministry of Forestry to the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries.

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 23 December 2025 the Government of the Russian Federation, via Order No. 3959-r signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, allocated more than RUB 1.3 billion (approx. USD 17 million) from the government's reserve fund to co-finance completion of four crab-catching vessels under construction at shipyards in the Far Eastern Federal District. The subsidy is split into four equal tranches of RUB 340 million to fishing companies (including LLC "TRK", LLC "Voskhod", LLC "Antey Sever" and LLC "Sever") holding investment-quota allocations for crab fishing, under a programme that ties quota rights to a domestic shipbuilding commitment. The order is part of a broader 2024-2026 investment-quota vessel programme covering 13 crab-catching vessels and roughly RUB 6.4 billion in cumulative state support.

On 29 August 2025 the Australian Government announced an additional AUD 1 billion in loan funding for the Regional Investment Corporation (RIC), taking cumulative RIC loan support for the agriculture sector to over AUD 5 billion. The package creates a new Drought Hardship Loan for farmers affected by drought for at least 24 months (borrowing up to AUD 250,000 over a five-year term, interest accruing but repayments fully deferred for the first two years), and broadens RIC's mandate to also support climate resilience, sector productivity, and agriculture's transition toward net zero. The measure is a concessional state-loan facility, not a border instrument, and does not target any specific foreign country.

On 22 August 2025, Brazil's Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming (MDA) and Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAPA) issued joint Portaria Interministerial MDA/MAPA nº 12/2025, part of the "Plano Brasil Soberano" response to the US 40% IEEPA tariff on Brazilian goods (Executive Order 14323). The ordinance creates an exceptional, emergency-character public-procurement channel under Law nº 14.133/2021 and Medida Provisória nº 1.309/2025, allowing federal, state and municipal public administration to buy açaí, coconut water, cashew nuts, Brazil nuts, mangoes, honey, fresh grapes and select fish (corvina, snapper, tilapia and other fresh/frozen fish) directly from producers and exporters who can document lost US sales since January 2023. Beef and coffee are explicitly excluded from the eligible-product list.

The European Commission approved a Czech national framework state aid scheme, worth an estimated €279.1 million, on 24 June 2025. The scheme is structured as an ex-ante contingent programme: it pre-authorises Czechia to compensate companies of all sizes active in the fishery and aquaculture sector for lost income and damages once a natural disaster or adverse climatic event affecting the sector is officially recognised. The scheme runs through 31 December 2031. Global Trade Alert logged the measure as a financial-grant intervention.

Norway's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries (Nærings- og fiskeridepartementet) submitted Meld. St. 16 (2024-2025) — "The Norwegian industry – competitiveness for a new time" — to the Storting on 28 March 2025 under Minister Cecilie Myrseth. The White Paper is Norway's first comprehensive industrial-policy framework in over a decade and sets out six political priorities: (i) access to clean and affordable energy via hydropower, offshore wind and green hydrogen; (ii) high-quality workforce with dual apprenticeship and digital-skills tracks; (iii) accelerating innovation and technology through R&D investment and stronger research-institute-to-business linkages; (iv) emission reduction across industrial sectors; (v) expanding international market access and reshaping Norway's position in the extended European value chain; and (vi) strategic and critical value-chain mapping, paralleled by a simultaneously launched cross-government mapping initiative. The White Paper is a non-binding policy framework but is the framing instrument under which sector-specific measures (CRMA-aligned mineral support, hydrogen funding, offshore-wind capacity build-out) will be sequenced.

Stortinget adopted Norway's new Minerals Act (Lov om mineralvirksomhet og forvaltning av mineralressurser) on 12 June 2025, replacing the 2009 Minerals Act and entering into force 1 July 2026. The statute introduces a national-security review pillar enabling authorities to deny or condition projects that threaten national preparedness, reduces exploration-licence duration from seven to three years to accelerate project initiation, expands Sámi consultation protections from Finnmark to all traditional Sámi areas (Sápmi), and mandates explicit alignment with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA, Regulation (EU) 2024/1252). The Act covers Norway's most strategically significant mineral assets including the Fen carbonatite REE field (Europe's largest known REE deposit) and major copper-zinc deposits.

Mauritania promulgated Loi n° 2025-006 on 19 February 2025, comprehensively replacing the 2012 Investment Code (Loi n° 2012-052) with a three-tier incentive architecture — a Base Regime (SME + intermediate categories), a Development Poles Regime (designated geographic zones), and a Structuring Investments Regime (large-scale strategic projects above 200M MRU). The law was drafted with IFC/World Bank technical assistance, codifies national-treatment equality between domestic and foreign investors, provides fiscal-customs stability guarantees of up to 20 years, and establishes APIM as a digital single-window authority with ICSID/UNCITRAL arbitration pathways. As of July 2025, 19 projects (≈USD 120M declared investment, 939 estimated direct jobs) had been approved under the new framework.

Indonesia issued Government Regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah) No. 8 of 2025 on Foreign-Exchange Proceeds from Natural-Resource Exports (DHE SDA), amending PP No. 36/2023. President Prabowo Subianto announced the policy at Merdeka Palace on 17–18 February 2025 and the regulation takes effect on 1 March 2025. It mandates that exporters of non-oil- and-gas mining, plantation, forestry, and fisheries products with export-proceeds value of USD 250,000 or more per shipment retain 100 percent of those foreign-exchange proceeds inside Indonesia's financial system for 12 months — sharply up from the prior 30 percent for 3 months under PP 36/2023. Oil-and-gas exporters remain on the earlier 30 percent / 3-month regime. Permitted in-period uses include rupiah conversion at the holding bank, payment of state obligations in foreign currency, dividend distribution, payment for imported raw materials and capital goods unavailable domestically, and servicing of foreign-currency capital-expenditure loans. Non-compliance carries administrative sanctions including suspension of export services. The government has projected the measure could lift retained foreign- exchange proceeds by USD 80 billion in 2025 and over USD 100 billion on a full 12-month basis.

On 14 January 2025 in Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide signed a bilateral Memorandum of Cooperation on High-Standard, Market-Oriented Trade of Critical Minerals. The instrument formalises an intergovernmental framework for cooperation on critical-minerals supply chains and embeds a Non-Market Policies and Practices (NMPP) analysis framework jointly developed by the US Department of Commerce and Norway's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries to identify and respond to non-market distortions in third countries. The MoC sits structurally alongside the parallel US bilateral track with Kazakhstan (Nov 2025), Uzbekistan, Guinea, Morocco, Peru and the Philippines (Feb 2026), extending the post-2024 US critical-minerals MoU architecture into a Western-aligned high-standards producer (Norway hosts the Fen Complex REE deposit and the Engebø rutile/garnet project).

On 3 January 2025 President Prabowo Subianto signed Keputusan Presiden (Keppres) No. 1 of 2025, establishing the Satuan Tugas Percepatan Hilirisasi dan Ketahanan Energi Nasional (Task Force for the Acceleration of Downstreaming and National Energy Resilience). The task force operates directly under the President, is chaired by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (Bahlil Lahadalia), and pulls together cabinet members from Investment & Downstreaming, Agrarian Affairs, Agriculture, Marine Affairs, Finance, Industry, SOEs, Environment, Public Works, Trade, plus the Attorney General and Police Chief. Its mandate covers minerals and coal, oil and gas, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and energy security: identifying strategic projects, mapping priority business areas, formulating standards on financing and state-revenue capture, adjusting spatial planning, and recommending administrative action against officials obstructing implementation. The task force reports to the President at least biannually and is funded out of the ESDM ministry budget.

Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 establishes the first EU-wide binding prohibition on placing, making available on, or exporting from the EU single market any products made with forced labour at any stage of production, manufacture, harvest, extraction or processing. The regulation is cross-sector and horizontal — no sectoral exemptions apply. It entered into force on 13 December 2024, with a phased implementation schedule; procedural and institutional framework provisions apply from 13 December 2024, while full operational application begins on 14 December 2027. The regulation empowers national competent authorities (and the Commission for state-imposed forced-labour cases involving third countries) to investigate, require withdrawal, and order destruction of non-compliant goods, and establishes a Commission-maintained publicly accessible database of high-risk geographic areas, sectors, and products.

The European Commission formally notified the Republic of Senegal on 27 May 2024 of the possibility of being identified as a non-cooperating third country in fighting illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, under Article 32 of Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008. The decision (C/2024/3277) cites specific shortcomings in Senegal's monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) of Senegalese-flagged vessels operating outside national waters, inadequate oversight of foreign vessels using Dakar port as a transhipment hub, and traceability failures enabling illegal fish exports to the EU. A formal dialogue period now opens during which Senegal must remediate identified deficiencies; failure to do so would lead to red-card escalation and a full EU import prohibition on Senegalese seafood.

Regulation (EU) 2023/2842, published in the Official Journal on 20 December 2023, is the first comprehensive recast of the EU fisheries control framework since Council Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009, and amends the IUU Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008 alongside five sectoral regulations (1967/2006, 2016/1139, 2017/2403, 2019/473). Effective in phases from 10 January 2026, it mandates the CATCH electronic catch-certification IT system for ALL imports of wild-capture marine fishery products into the EU single market, replacing legacy paper catch certificates. It also introduces Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) with CCTV on high-risk EU vessels ≥18 m, full electronic reporting for all vessels by 2028, and extended Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) coverage down to vessels ≥12 m. The regulation tightens the carding regime (red/yellow cards for non-cooperating flag states under the amended IUU Regulation) and requires digital traceability end-to-end through the supply chain, raising compliance cost and market-access barriers for all non-EU seafood exporters.

Norway's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries (NFD) published the national mineral strategy on 21 June 2023, establishing a comprehensive framework to develop domestic critical-mineral resources sustainably while anchoring Norway's role in EU and allied supply chains. The strategy introduces a "hurtigspor" (fast-track) permitting procedure for projects of strategic significance, coordinates the Norwegian Geological Survey (NGU) and Directorate of Mineral Management around critical-raw-material mapping, and signals consideration of a state investment vehicle to secure Norwegian equity stakes in domestic mineral projects. Key mineral resources targeted include the Fen Complex rare-earth deposit (the largest validated EU REE resource), the Engebø rutile/garnet project (Nordic Mining), and the primary aluminium cluster (Hydro).

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Act 2023 (Act No. 12 of 2023, Cth) received royal assent on 11 April 2023 and established the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) as a corporate Commonwealth entity under the PGPA Act 2013, formally constituted on 18 September 2023. The Act commits A$15 billion of concessional finance (loans, equity and guarantees) to projects in seven declared priority areas: renewables and low-emission technologies; medical science; transport; value-add in agriculture, forestry and fisheries; value-add in resources; defence capability; and enabling capabilities (advanced manufacturing, AI, robotics, quantum). The NRFC predates and underpins the 2024 Future Made in Australia package -- it is the equity/loan-finance instrument of the Australian industrial-policy stack, distinct from the FMIA umbrella framework and from the FMIA Production Tax Credits Act 2024 (the tax-credit instrument).

Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/97 of 5 January 2023 formally identified Cameroon as a non-cooperating third country under Article 31 of Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008 (IUU Regulation), issuing the EU's first "red card" to a West African flag state. The Commission found that Cameroon systematically registered fishing vessels — including vessels with documented prior IUU histories — without adequate monitoring or flag-state control over their activities outside Cameroonian territorial waters. Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/405, adopted 20 February 2023, confirmed the identification and triggered the operative trade consequences: a total prohibition on imports into the EU single market of wild-capture fishery products caught by Cameroon-flagged vessels, a bar on EU vessels chartering or operating under the Cameroonian flag, and a prohibition on EU operators purchasing from or transhipping with Cameroon-flagged vessels in any waters.

Tanzania's Parliament enacted Act No. 5 of 2017, the Natural Wealth and Resources (Permanent Sovereignty) Act, as part of a landmark resource-nationalism legislative trio (alongside Act No. 6 on unconscionable contract renegotiation and Written Laws Miscellaneous Amendments No. 7), signed into law by President John Magufuli on 4 July 2017. The Act vests all of Tanzania's natural wealth and resources — minerals, oil and natural gas, fisheries, wildlife, forestry, water, and related sub-surface assets — as the permanent and inalienable property of the People of the United Republic, held in trust by the President on their behalf. Key operative provisions prohibit international commercial arbitration of natural-resource disputes (mandating adjudication within Tanzanian courts under Tanzanian law), empower Parliament to review and require renegotiation of any natural-resource arrangement containing "unconscionable terms," impose an in-country banking rule on earnings from natural wealth extraction, and authorise statutory override of contractual stabilisation clauses embedded in pre-2017 mining development agreements. The Act is the foundational parent statute underpinning all subsequent Tanzanian mining-sector reform, including the 2024 Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 4) Act critical/strategic minerals classification and the 2025 Finance Act mining amendments.