Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

Ethiopia's Banking Business Proclamation No. 1360/2025, ratified by the House of Peoples' Representatives on 17 December 2024 and gazetted in March 2025, repeals Proclamation 592/2008 and opens Ethiopia's banking sector to foreign participation for the first time since the 1974 Derg-era nationalisations. Foreign banks may enter via subsidiary establishment, branch licensing, representative offices, or equity acquisition in existing domestic banks. A single strategic foreign investor is capped at 40% ownership per domestic bank, with aggregate foreign ownership across all investors capped at 49%. The reform positions Ethiopia — Africa's second-most-populous country — as a competitor to Nairobi, Lagos, and Johannesburg as an African banking centre, unlocking entry plans by Standard Bank, KCB Group, Equity Bank, ABSA, and GCC-based institutions.

Sweden's first horizontal foreign-direct-investment screening regime. Lag (2023:560) om granskning av utländska direktinvesteringar — promulgated (utfärdad) by the Ministry of Justice on 21 September 2023 on the basis of Government Bill 2022/23:116, and entered into force on 1 December 2023 — establishes mandatory ex-ante notification to Inspektionen för strategiska produkter (ISP) for direct or indirect acquisitions of voting rights of ≥10%, 20%, 30%, 50%, 65%, or 90% in Swedish entities conducting "skyddsvärd verksamhet" (protected business activities). The protected-activity perimeter is defined by Förordning (2023:624) and the ISP listing across seven sub-categories: essential services, security-sensitive activities, critical raw materials/metals/ minerals, sensitive location and personal data, military equipment, dual-use goods, and emerging or strategically protected technologies. Both EU and non-EU investors are within scope. Unnotified transactions are void by operation of law and may carry administrative fines of SEK 25,000 to SEK 100 million. From 1 Dec 2023 to 29 Nov 2024 ISP processed 1,206 notifications, opened 24 deeper screenings, approved 11, approved 5 with conditions, and prohibited 1 transaction.

Decree-Law No. 104 of 10 August 2023 ("Decreto Asset" / Omnibus Decree, GU n.186 of 10 Aug 2023, in force 11 Aug 2023) was converted with amendments into Law No. 136 of 9 October 2023 (GU n.236 of 9 Oct 2023). The conversion law materially expanded Italy's "Golden Power" foreign-direct-investment screening regime (DL 21/2012). Two key extensions: (i) intra-group transactions involving entities outside the EU are no longer exempt from the exercise of special powers — only the prior notification carve-out was preserved; (ii) acts, resolutions and operations concerning intellectual-property rights in artificial intelligence, semiconductor production, cybersecurity, aerospace, energy storage, quantum and nuclear technologies, and food production technologies fall within scope when one or more counter-parties sit outside the EU. The Prime Minister also obtained an explicit veto power over transactions creating "exceptional situations" not already covered by sectoral or EU prudential / merger rules, including those touching qualifying holdings in the financial sector.

On 25 July 2023 Egypt published Law No. 160 of 2023 in the Official Gazette, amending Investment Law No. 72 of 2017 to expand and modernise the country's foreign-direct-investment incentive architecture. The law universalises General Incentives (stamp-duty exemptions, land-registration-fee relief, reduced customs duties on capital goods) to all investment projects regardless of establishment date, broadens the Golden License single-permit regime to strategic/national projects and PPP infrastructure, and unlocks the Free Zones system for previously excluded energy-intensive sectors — petroleum manufacturing, fertilizers, iron and steel, LNG liquefaction and transportation — subject to Supreme Council of Energy approval. A Special Incentive of 33–55% tax credit on income from qualifying new industrial investment projects was introduced; the Special Incentives establishment window was subsequently extended three years to October 2026 by Cabinet Decree No. 1203 of 2024. As of December 2025 GAFI had approved 44 Golden Licenses under this architecture.

Tanzania's Parliament passed Act No. 10 of 2022, the Tanzania Investment Act, 2022, on 2 December 2022, repealing the Tanzania Investment Act 1997 (Cap. 38 / Act No. 26 of 1997) — the first major overhaul of the country's foreign-investment legal framework in 25 years. The new Act restructures the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) into a One-Stop Facilitation Centre with an integrated electronic system, introduces Strategic and Major Investment Certificates (with capital thresholds of USD 50m foreign / USD 20m local plus minimum 1,000 local jobs and 50% export-uplift requirements), reduces the minimum capital threshold for ordinary local investors from USD 100,000 to USD 50,000, and codifies dispute-resolution access via local arbitration, ICSID, and bilateral/multilateral investment protection agreements. The Act was operationalised by Government Notice No. 94 of 17 February 2023.

Belgium's first horizontal foreign-direct-investment screening regime, established by a Cooperation Agreement signed on 30 November 2022 between the Federal State and the Flemish, Walloon, Brussels-Capital and German-Community governments, and in force from 1 July 2023. The agreement creates a centralised Interfederal Screening Commission (ISC), chaired by the FPS Economy, to receive and process mandatory ex-ante notifications of foreign acquisitions of 10%, 25% or higher voting-rights / control thresholds (sector-dependent) in Belgian undertakings active in eleven strategic sectors. ISC decisions are binding; sanctions for failure to notify or for non-compliance with conditions imposed include unwinding of the transaction and administrative fines.

Act No. 497/2022 Coll. on the Screening of Foreign Investments and on amendments to certain acts, adopted by the National Council of the Slovak Republic on 29 November 2022 and promulgated in the Zbierka zákonov on 23 December 2022, established Slovakia's first horizontal ex-ante foreign-direct-investment screening regime. The Act took effect on 1 March 2023, transposing EU Regulation 2019/452 into Slovak law and replacing the prior sector-specific approach under Act No. 45 on critical infrastructure. Screening is administered by the Ministry of the Economy of the Slovak Republic across three procedures (mandatory, voluntary, and ex officio) and covers transactions in defence, dual-use, critical infrastructure, critical raw materials, biotechnology, AI, semiconductors and other emerging technologies. The Ministry can prohibit, condition or unwind non-compliant transactions and impose administrative penalties.

Finland's parent foreign-direct-investment screening statute. Laki ulkomaalaisten yritysostojen seurannasta (172/2012) — originally enacted in 2012 to replace the 1992 act — was comprehensively amended by Act 682/2020, which entered into force 11 October 2020 to align Finnish national procedure with EU Regulation 2019/452 establishing the EU FDI cooperation mechanism. The Act establishes (i) mandatory ex-ante notification to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment (TEM) for non-EU/EEA acquisitions of Finnish entities producing or supplying defence equipment, dual-use goods, or products/services critical to functions vital to society, and (ii) voluntary notification for any acquisition of a Finnish company with "critical interests for securing societal vital functions." Foreign-owner triggers apply at 10%, one-third, and 50% of voting rights or equivalent influence. TEM is designated the Finnish FDI contact point under Reg 2019/452. Confirmation is granted by TEM unless a key national interest is endangered, in which case the matter is referred to a Government plenary session (Valtioneuvoston yleisistunto); a denied transaction obliges the foreign owner to dispose of the shares within a stated period.