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

On 28 January 2026 the European Commission's CINEA agency allocated a EUR 180.03 million grant to Repsol Generación Electrica SA under the 2025 Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Energy call, funding the "Construction of the Reversible Pumped-Storage Hydroelectric Power Plant AGUAYO II" Project of Common and Mutual Interest in Cantabria, Spain. It was the single largest individual allocation of the round and the only pumped-storage project among the 14 cross-border energy infrastructure projects sharing roughly EUR 650 million from the same call. AGUAYO II will support electricity system flexibility and renewable-energy integration; CINEA states it will reduce curtailment of renewable output by an estimated 1,438 GWh/year (about 7.3% of Spain's total curtailed renewables) and cut CO2 emissions by roughly 566,000 tonnes/year by displacing two nearby combined-cycle gas plants. CINEA formally awarded the grant certificate for the project on 21-22 May 2026 at the 12th Energy Infrastructure Forum in Copenhagen. Commissioning is targeted for 31 December 2030.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 175 million green loan with Iberdrola on 15 January 2026 to finance two new wind farms (274 MW combined, 38 turbines of 7.2 MW) integrated into Iberdrola's Tâmega pumped-storage hydropower complex in northern Portugal, part of a roughly EUR 350 million total investment. The loan is guaranteed by Spain's export credit agency Cesce, marking the second use of the EIB-Cesce guarantee instrument that backs green projects led by Spanish companies outside Spain. Global Trade Alert logs the loan as a "red" state-loan intervention on the same grounds as the first Cesce-backed EIB-Iberdrola operation (Windanker, Germany): below-market multilateral financing to a named commercial developer, underwritten by a national export credit agency.

Japan's Cabinet approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) national budget on 26 December 2025, funding METI/ANRE's "Hydropower Energy Introduction Promotion Project" (水力発電導入促進支援事業費補助金) -- one of the programmes Global Trade Alert logs under the FY2026 METI budget cycle, which it puts at a JPY 2.8 billion allocation. ANRE opened a public offer on 26 January 2026 (closed 16 February 2026) for the executing body that would administer indirect subsidies to private-sector and municipal operators for FY2026-27; the New Energy Foundation (一般財団 法人新エネルギー財団) was selected on 20 February 2026. The programme supports two tracks: subsidised replacement/upgrade of ageing existing hydropower facilities to raise output and efficiency, and feasibility studies to expand new entrants into small and mid-scale hydropower.

NIB, the multilateral development bank owned by the eight Nordic and Baltic member states, signed a NOK 1 billion (EUR 86 million / USD 100 million) loan with Hafslund AS, Norway's second-largest renewable energy group and largest district-heating supplier. The loan is split into two NOK 500 million tranches with eight- and eleven-year tenors and finances three projects: reconstruction of the Braskereidfoss hydropower dam and plants on the Glomma River (destroyed by Storm Hans in 2023), construction of the 20 MW Skygard data centre at Økern, Oslo, and an upgrade of Aker Hospital's district-heating connection. NIB financing is provided at preferential development-bank rates relative to commercial project finance, functioning as a below-market state-backed subsidy to strategic domestic energy and digital infrastructure.

On 27 August 2025 the Royal Government of Cambodia issued Sub-Decree No. 161, amending Annex II (List of Categorization of Investment Activities) of Sub-Decree No. 139 of 26 June 2023 — the principal implementing decree of the 2021 Law on Investment (Royal Kram NS/RKM/1021/014). The amendment reclassifies investment activities in the production of electricity generated from renewable energy from Group 2 (medium-technology investment activities) to Group 1 (priority-sector investment activities), the highest-tier category under Cambodia's CDC-administered Qualified Investment Project (QIP) route. Group 1 elevation entitles qualifying RE-generation projects to a nine-year corporate income tax holiday (the maximum under the Annex IV incentive matrix), full customs-duty exemption on imports of construction materials, production equipment, and production inputs, priority-sector premiums, accelerated CDC investment-licence processing, and Special Economic Zone overlays where applicable. The reclassification reflects Cambodia's Cambodia Power Development Master Plan 2022-2040, which targets 70% renewable energy in the national power mix by 2030. Sub-Decree 161 is the foundational KH-issuer post-2021 Investment Law implementing decree for the RE sector, providing the regulatory anchor for project bankability assessments under Cambodia's evolving competitive-auction (post-feed-in-tariff) pricing regime being structured by the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Electricity Authority of Cambodia (EAC). It brings Cambodia into alignment with parallel ASEAN investment-incentive-amendment instruments in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.

India's Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved an INR 8,146.21 crore (~USD 980 million) investment proposal for the 700 MW (4x175 MW) Tato-II Hydro Electric Project in Shi Yomi district, Arunachal Pradesh, to be built over 72 months by a joint venture between North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Ltd (NEEPCO) and the Government of Arunachal Pradesh. The Government of India component consists of INR 436.13 crore in central financial assistance toward the state's equity share plus INR 458.79 crore in budgetary support for enabling infrastructure (roads, bridges, transmission lines) — together INR 894.92 crore (~USD 108 million) of direct central subsidy. Arunachal Pradesh receives 12% free power and a 1% local-area-development-fund allocation from project output.

NHPC Limited (a Government of India Navratna enterprise) tendered Lot-3 civil and hydro-mechanical works — main dam including coffer dam — for the 2,880 MW Dibang Multipurpose Project in Lower Dibang Valley district, Arunachal Pradesh, a strategic hydropower and flood- control project near the India-China border. Global Trade Alert records the tender's estimated value at INR 17,069 crore (~USD 2.05 billion), announced/implemented 15 July 2025. Per NHPC's standing compliance with the Government of India's Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017, bidders must certify minimum local content, giving Class-I local suppliers a bid-evaluation preference margin across the tendered categories.

NIB, the multilateral development bank owned by the eight Nordic and Baltic member states, signed a EUR 30 million, 15-year loan with Norwegian utility Sogn og Fjordane Energi AS (SFE) to finance the rebuild of the Øksenelvane hydropower plant in Western Norway. The new station, built alongside the existing 70-year-old facility to keep generation running through construction, will add roughly 21 GWh/y of output and nearly quadruple capacity, with completion expected in 2028. NIB's below-market development-bank funding cost functions as a state-adjacent subsidy for Norwegian renewable-energy infrastructure.

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.

Nepal's Federal Parliament ratified an omnibus statute on 20–31 March 2025 converting the 13 January 2025 Presidential Ordinance into permanent law, comprehensively amending 11 Acts including the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act 2019 (FITTA), the Industrial Enterprises Act 2020, and the Special Economic Zone Act 2016. The statute expands the scope of permissible foreign investment (replacing the positive-list "any industry" with the broader "any industry other than those in the Schedule"), broadens the "technology transfer" definition to include management/technical services, IT, marketing, finance, engineering, and digital-data-processing, mandates prior Department of Industry approval for foreign investor equity transfers to domestic parties, and for the first time authorises Nepali companies to invest abroad using income earned from technology exports. Repatriation approval windows are compressed to 7 days (15 days for appeals), and foreign investment in Specialised Investment Fund (SIF) units is enabled via SEBON approval.

The National Assembly of the Lao PDR adopted the amended Law on Investment Promotion (No. 62/NA) on 28 June 2024; it entered into force on 16 December 2024, replacing the 2016 Investment Promotion Law and the 2019 Article-12 amendment. The statute spans 13 parts and 109 articles (62 amended, 32 new) and establishes the foundational legal architecture for domestic and foreign investment in Laos, setting out promotion categories, fiscal-incentive regimes, one-stop-service approval pathways, and investor-protection guarantees. Key reforms tighten the framework for large strategic-sector FDI in mining and hydropower — requiring partial state ownership — while expanding CIT/tax-holiday and customs-duty exemptions by SEZ category and sector-promotion zone. The law operationalises the Investment Promotion and Management Committee (IPMC) as the one-stop regulatory authority, enhancing alignment with the Lao-China Railway-driven Chinese-FDI surge and positioning Laos within the ASEAN horizontal investment-promotion reform wave.

On 4 June 2024 the Philippine Department of Energy issued Department Circular DC2024-06-0018, the Revised Omnibus Guidelines Governing the Award and Administration of Renewable Energy Contracts and the Registration of Renewable Energy Developers. The circular operationalises the November 2022 reinterpretation (DC2022-11-0034) under which solar, wind, biomass and ocean/tidal RE resources are excluded from the constitutional 60-40 nationality cap on natural-resource exploitation, allowing 100% foreign-owned applicants to take RE Service Contracts in those four resource classes. Geothermal RE contracts remain subject to the 60-40 Filipino-ownership requirement. The Guidelines also restructure pre-award, award and post-award procedures across the ~1,400 RE service contracts (≈154 GW) in the DOE pipeline and allow developers to begin permitting and feasibility work before the 25-year contract term formally begins.