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

DGFT Notification No. 16/2026-27 (13 May 2026) escalated the export policy for sugar under ITC(HS) codes 1701 14 90 (raw sugar) and 1701 99 90 (white and refined sugar) from "Restricted" to "Prohibited" with immediate effect, covering all three commercial grades. The prohibition runs until 30 September 2026, or until a further Central Government order, whichever is earlier. The measure is a pre-emptive domestic price-stabilisation step ahead of an uncertain 2025-26 sugarcane season; carve-outs preserve EU and US CXL/Tariff-Rate-Quota obligations, Advance Authorisation Scheme exports, government-to-government shipments, and consignments already in the physical export pipeline before 13 May 2026.

Prime Minister Dr Mostafa Madbouly issued Decree No. 503 of 2026 on 25 February 2026, expanding the catalogue of industrial activities eligible for investment incentives under Egypt's Investment Law No. 72/2017 and linking them to Sector A / Sector B geographic classifications. Sector A projects (underserved areas, Upper Egypt, the New Administrative Capital, and economic zones) receive a 50% deduction of investment costs from net taxable profits over seven years, capped at 80% of paid-in capital; Sector B projects (remaining regions) receive a 30% deduction on the same terms. Newly designated priority activities include all automobile and vehicle categories (conventional and electric), electric motors and engines, refrigerator evaporators and compressors, sheet metal for electrical/electronic appliances, pipes and tubes, fruit/vegetable concentrates, and concentrated sulfuric acid. The decree consolidates and supersedes prior incentive decisions issued since 2022, deepening import-substitution and local-content pressure across automotive, electronics, and chemicals supply chains feeding Suez Canal Economic Zone investors and feeder-industry suppliers.

Brazil's federal innovation-financing agency FINEP (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos), under the MCTI/FNDCT umbrella, published a BRL 300 million (~USD 56.9 million) public call — "Finep Mais Inovação Brasil – Rodada 2 – Cadeias Agroindustriais Sustentáveis" — offering non-repayable economic-subsidy grants for private-sector research, development and innovation projects in sustainable and digital agro-industrial chains, covering food innovation, food and nutritional security, agricultural productivity, and technical textiles. Applicant companies must be Brazilian and may partner with Scientific, Technological and Innovation Institutions (ICTs). Proposals are accepted on a continuous-flow basis until 2026-09-30 18:00 (Brasília time), or earlier if the budget is exhausted.

The Chongqing Municipal Government General Office issued Notice 渝府办发〔2026〕5号 on 2026-02-04, promulgating a "New Ten-Point Policy Supporting High-Quality Development of the Food and Agricultural Product Processing Industry," effective through 2028-12-31. The package includes up to CNY 200 million in funding for enterprises that establish national-level modern agricultural industrial parks or advantaged industrial clusters, directs 60%+ of fiscal steady-state assistance funds toward seven priority processing sub-sectors (grains/oils, meat/eggs/dairy, fruit/ vegetables/tea, leisure foods, condiments, hot-pot ingredients, Chinese medicinal materials), and subsidises new enterprise loans at up to 60% of the benchmark LPR (capped at CNY 2 million per enterprise), alongside a guarantee-fee cap of 0.6% for qualifying borrowers. Global Trade Alert flags the interest-subsidy component as the "Red" (most trade-distorting) intervention type.

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 16 January 2026 the Saudi Council of Ministers, via Cabinet Decision No. 468/1447 (issued 30 December 2025 / 9 Rajab 1447H), published in the Umm Al-Qura Official Gazette four sets of implementing regulations governing the King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), Ras Al-Khair, Jazan, and Cloud Computing & IT Special Economic Zones. The regulations entered into force on 16 April 2026 (90 days after gazette publication) and operationalise the SEZ framework first launched by ECZA in April 2023. Each zone has its own standalone framework but they share a common headline tax package: 5% corporate income tax for up to 20 years, zero VAT on intra-SEZ and SEZ-import flows, customs-duty suspension on qualifying imports, withholding-tax exemption on dividends and approved cross-border payments, and exemption from key provisions of the Saudi Companies Law, Commercial Register Law, and Trade Names Law. KAEC focuses on advanced manufacturing, automotive, consumer goods, ICT and pharmaceuticals; Ras Al-Khair targets shipbuilding, offshore rigs and MRO; Jazan covers food processing, metals conversion and logistics for Africa-bound trade; the Cloud Computing SEZ is a virtual zone (data centres can sit anywhere in KSA, headquarters must be in Riyadh) for cloud and AI-compute workloads. The package is the operational implementation layer for the 2024 Investment Law and a core Vision 2030 FDI-attraction instrument.

Italy's national development bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), together with a banking consortium led by Intesa Sanpaolo (including Crédit Agricole and Banca Popolare di Sondrio), provided a EUR 56 million financing package to ICAM SpA, an Italian chocolate and cocoa semi-finished products manufacturer based in Orsenigo (Como province). Of the total, EUR 40 million is earmarked for expansion of the Orsenigo production facility — including a new production building, an innovation centre for chocolate recipe development, energy-efficient automated machinery, and enhanced raw-material traceability systems — while EUR 16 million supports the company's capital structure. The expansion will add over 23,000 square meters across four levels and raise production capacity from 30,000 to 50,000 tons annually by 2027.

Iraq's Council of Ministers approved a 25% customs duty on imported tomato paste at its 45th regular session on 13 November 2025, citing protection of domestic national products under Law No. 11 of 2011 (as amended). The duty runs for four years without reduction and took effect four months after issuance (13 March 2026), applying non-discriminately to all countries of origin. Global Trade Alert flags China and Turkiye as the leading supplier countries by import volume, though the measure does not name specific target countries.

On 10 November 2025 the Mexican government published a decree in the Diario Oficial de la Federación (DOF) modifying the Tarifa de la Ley de los Impuestos Generales de Importación y de Exportación (LIGIE) to raise most-favoured-nation import tariffs on sugar and sugar-derivative products (raw, refined, liquid and invert sugar, and related high-sugar-content goods across roughly eight six-digit tariff subheadings) to between 156% and 210.44% ad valorem, replacing the prior specific-duty regime of USD 0.33–0.39 per kilogram. The decree entered into force 11 November 2025, the day after publication, and applies to imports from WTO members that lack a preferential trade agreement with Mexico. The Secretaría de Economía framed the increase as protection for the domestic sugarcane agro-industry against a national oversupply and falling international reference prices.

Decreto 685/2025, signed by President Javier Milei with Chief of Cabinet Guillermo Francos and Economy Minister Luis Caputo, cuts Argentina's Derecho de Exportación (DEX) rate to 0% on 145 meat and live-animal products (98 six-digit NCM codes) — bovine, poultry, porcine, caprine, and ovine — from the previously applicable 5% rate. Published in the Boletín Oficial on 23 September 2025 and effective 24 September, the measure runs through 31 October 2025. Exporters must liquidate at least 90% of foreign-exchange proceeds within three business days of shipping- permit authorization or lose the 0% rate retroactively. Government and press estimates put the anticipated foreign-exchange liquidation impact at USD 800M-1.2B over the window, against an estimated USD 150-200M fiscal cost in foregone export-duty revenue.

SARS inserted rebate item 460.15/7306.40/01.06 into Part 2 of Schedule No. 4 to the Customs and Excise Act, 1964 (Government Gazette 53334, Notice R.6596, 12 September 2025), giving effect to ITAC Report No. 742. The item creates a temporary duty rebate on stainless-steel tubing (HS 7306.40) used in the manufacture and maintenance of processing plants for the hygienic and liquid-food industries. ITAC found no known SACU manufacturer produces stainless-steel tubing to the required hygienic/ food-grade specifications, and no near-term prospect of local production given cost constraints, so it recommended a full duty waiver subject to an ITAC permit confirming the goods are not available in the SACU market. Applicant: Guth South Africa (equipment supplier to the hygienic and liquid-food processing sector).

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.

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.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 133.2 million (approx. USD 23.5 million) in financing to Coopavel Cooperativa Agroindustrial, a Paraná-based agricultural cooperative, toward a BRL 144.3 million total investment. The operation was structured under the Plano Safra framework using resources from the Programa para Construção e Ampliação de Armazéns (PCA) and Prodecoop. Funds expand and modernize grain-receiving and input-sale units in Três Barras and Céu Azul (Paraná), lifting combined storage capacity by roughly 19,600 tonnes and raising annual feed-ration output from 630,000 to 690,000 tonnes.

The Australian Border Force published Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. TC 25/22 on 11 June 2025 under sections 269K, 269R and 269SE of the Customs Act 1901. The gazette lists new Tariff Concession Order (TCO) applications, eight TCOs made (moving corrosion inhibitors, compostable- film polymers, furnace cooling systems, aseptic food-processing machinery, reverse-osmosis filters, oilfield drilling parts and pallet-manufacturing robotics from the 5% general tariff rate to duty-free), one withdrawn application, and five local-manufacturer-initiated TCO revocations (reinstating the 5% general tariff rate on steel access-box, formwork and crown-seal products effective 22-24 January 2025). This is a routine, periodic administrative tariff-concession cycle rather than a discrete policy announcement.

Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue gazetted SRO 225-Ain/2025/48/Customs and SRO 226-Ain/2025/48/Customs on 29 May 2025, revising the minimum customs valuation (tariff-value) floors used to assess duty on a range of imported consumer and industrial goods, effective 2 June 2025. The amendment raised minimum import values for chocolate and cocoa-containing food preparations, removed the minimum-value floor for base oil used by petroleum processing/blending industries, and adjusted floors — mostly downward — for soap and other cleaning preparations and a handful of additional product lines. Minimum-value schemes set a customs-assessable price floor per unit regardless of the invoiced transaction value, so a higher floor functions as a de facto increase in the duty base (and hence landed cost) for under-invoicing-prone product categories, while a removed or lowered floor eases the duty base for the affected goods.

Decree 38/2025 reduces Argentina's agricultural export duties (retenciones) across all major grains and oilseeds effective January 27, 2025, through June 30, 2025. Soybean duties fall from 33% to 26%, soy products from 31% to 24.5%, wheat/maize/barley/sorghum from 12% to 9.5%, and sunflower seed from 7% to 5.5%; regional-economy commodities including sugar, cotton, and rice receive a permanent zero-duty rate. The measures are designed to accelerate foreign exchange liquidation by improving exporter margins under the Milei administration's macroeconomic stabilisation program, and represent the most market-significant single Argentine agricultural trade action of 2025-Q1.

On 9 January 2025, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs HE Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani unveiled the Qatar National Manufacturing Strategy 2024–2030 alongside the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) sectoral strategy at the Qatar National Convention Centre. The manufacturing strategy targets raising sectoral value-add to QAR 70.5bn (~USD 19.4bn), lifting non-hydrocarbon industrial exports above QAR 49bn (~USD 13.5bn), attracting annual industrial investment of QAR 2.75bn (~USD 755m), and placing Qatar among the world's top 40 economies in the UNIDO Competitiveness Industrial Performance index by 2030. It is built on four transformative pillars: shift to smart and green manufacturing, R&D-led productivity uplift, alignment of education and training with industrial demand, and expansion of Qatari workforce participation (Qatarisation), delivered through 15 strategic initiatives and 60 projects.

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.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, adopted 31 May 2023 and in force 29 June 2023, requires all EU operators and traders placing seven in-scope commodities and their derived products on the EU market — or exporting them from the EU — to file due-diligence statements certifying that goods are deforestation-free (no land cleared after 31 December 2020) and produced in compliance with the relevant legislation of the country of origin. A Commission-administered risk-classification system assigns producer countries to low, standard, or high-risk tiers with differentiated due-diligence burdens. Application was subsequently postponed twice: to 30 December 2026 for large operators (Reg (EU) 2024/3234 and Reg (EU) 2025/2650).

Germany's Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz (LkSG), promulgated 16 July 2021 (BGBl. I 2021 S. 2959), requires German-headquartered companies to conduct mandatory human-rights and environmental due diligence across their own operations and direct suppliers (with cause-based obligations extending to indirect suppliers). Enforced by BAFA with administrative fines up to EUR 8 million or 2% of global annual turnover for firms with revenue ≥ EUR 400 million. The act applies to ~3,000 German corporates from 1 January 2023 (≥3,000 employees) and was extended to ~5,000 firms from 1 January 2024 (≥1,000 employees). A September 2025 cabinet amendment removed the annual-reporting obligation and narrowed sanctionable omissions to serious violations.