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

On 27 December 2021 the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan adopted Law No. 86-VII ZRK "On Industrial Policy" (Закон Республики Казахстан "О промышленной политике"), the horizontal framework statute that defines and governs the full toolkit of state-support instruments available to industrial entities — subsidies, in-kind grants, special economic zone (SEZ) regimes, industrial zone regimes, offtake guarantees, public-procurement preferences, long-term tariff agreements, and the "single card of industrialization" monitoring framework. The law replaced the earlier 2014 industrial-and-innovative-development statute and consolidated previously dispersed authority for the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development (now Ministry of Industry and Construction) as the policy owner, with the Bank for Development of Kazakhstan (BDK / DBK) as the principal industrial- finance vehicle and Samruk-Kazyna and Tau-Ken Samruk as the state-equity vehicles. It is the enabling parent instrument under which all downstream Kazakh industrial-policy programmes (the 2023-12-28 REE Comprehensive Plan, the 2025-12-26 Subsoil Code amendments, the 18 October 2024 Investment Policy Concept until 2029, and the SEZ / industrial-zone regimes hosting Western FDI) operate. The statute has been amended eleven times between July 2022 and September 2025, including by Law 86-VIII ZRK of 21 May 2024 which revised Article 24 (state-support measures).

The Bureau of Industry and Security amended the Export Administration Regulations by adding 34 entities under 43 entries to the Entity List, effective July 12, 2021. The largest cluster — 14 Chinese entities — comprises suppliers of surveillance infrastructure enabling the Chinese government's human-rights abuses in Xinjiang, including video analytics firms, network equipment makers, and geolocation platforms deployed in the Uyghur Region. Six Russian individuals and entities were added for participation in military procurement networks acquiring US-origin electronics and components in violation of the EAR. Additional listings cover Iran sanctions evaders (Canada, Lebanon), a UAE-based nuclear-proliferation facilitator, and one entity elevated from the Unverified List to the Entity List under China. All items subject to the EAR require a BIS licence to export, re-export, or transfer in-country to the listed parties, with a presumption-of-denial review policy.

The Data Security Law of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国数据安全法) was adopted at the 29th meeting of the 13th NPC Standing Committee on 10 June 2021 and entered into force on 1 September 2021, constituting the second pillar of China's cybersecurity and data-governance regulatory trinity alongside the Cybersecurity Law (2016) and the Personal Information Protection Law (2021). The DSL establishes a tiered data-classification regime — "important data" and "national core data" — with escalating security obligations including risk assessment, risk monitoring, breach reporting, and classified-protection requirements for data handlers. It introduces a data-export security review for "important data" generated or collected within China, the statutory parent authority operationalised by the 2024 CAC Cross-Border Data Flow Provisions, and enacts a §36 blocking statute prohibiting Chinese organisations and individuals from transferring data stored in China to foreign judicial or law-enforcement authorities without prior PRC government approval.

Denmark's foundational cross-sector horizontal FDI screening statute. Lov nr 842 of 10 May 2021 — investeringsscreeningsloven — was adopted by the Folketing on 4 May 2021, signed on 10 May 2021, and entered into force on 1 July 2021 (with application to transactions implemented from 1 September 2021). The Act is administered by Erhvervsstyrelsen (Danish Business Authority) and combines (i) a mandatory pre-closing authorisation regime for foreign investments in "particularly sensitive sectors" — defence, dual-use products, IT-security functions/services, critical technology, critical infrastructure — triggered at 10% ownership / voting rights or equivalent control, with (ii) a voluntary notification scheme (typically engaged at 25%+) for foreign investments and special economic agreements in other sectors. Enforcement runs through blocking orders, unwinding orders, and criminal sanctions including fines and imprisonment. Structural peer of the US CFIUS regime, EU Regulation 2019/452, the German AWG §§55-62, the French Décret 2014-479 / R. 151-1 et seq., the UK NSI Act 2021, the Netherlands Wet Vifo, the Italian Golden Power Decree, and the Swedish FDI screening regime.

The German Federal Government adopted the 17th amendment to the Außenwirtschaftsverordnung (AWV, Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance), published 30 April 2021 and entering into force 1 May 2021, aligning Germany's FDI screening regime with EU Regulation 2019/452. The amendment adds 16 further sectors to the sector-specific mandatory-notification regime, on top of the 11 already covered, bringing the total to 27 -- including AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles/drones, semiconductors, quantum technology, satellite systems, cybersecurity, and critical raw materials. Filing thresholds are voting-rights acquisitions of 10% or more by a non-EU/EFTA investor in the newly added sectors, with subsequent review triggers at 20%, 25%, 40%, 50% and 75%.

The National Security and Investment Act 2021 (c.25), receiving Royal Assent on 29 April 2021 and entering full force on 4 January 2022, created the UK's first standalone investment-screening regime, separating national-security review from the Competition and Markets Authority merger-control process. The Act empowers the Secretary of State to call in any acquisition of "control or influence" over a qualifying entity or asset on national-security grounds, and designates 17 sensitive sectors in which acquisitions crossing 25%/50%/75% share-or-voting-rights thresholds (or material influence) require mandatory pre-completion notification to the Investment Security Unit (Cabinet Office); completion before clearance is void and criminal sanctions of up to 5 years imprisonment apply to non-notifying parties. The Act is the structural peer of US CFIUS/FIRRMA (2018), EU Regulation 2019/452, Germany AWG §§55–62, France Décret 2014-479, Netherlands Wet Vifo, and the broader allied FDI-screening parent-statute lattice, and the enabling statute under which all UK mandatory-notification schedule amendments operate.

Czech Republic's foundational horizontal FDI screening statute. Zákon č. 34/2021 Sb., o prověřování zahraničních investic — adopted by Parliament in January 2021, published in Sbírka zákonů on 29 January 2021, and entered into force on 1 May 2021 — transposes the cooperation obligations of EU Regulation 2019/452 and creates the first cross-sector pre-clearance regime for non-EU investments into Czech firms. The Act is administered by the Ministerstvo průmyslu a obchodu (MPO) and combines (i) a mandatory ex-ante consent regime for non-EU investments acquiring ≥10% in companies producing military material, selected dual-use goods, or operating critical / critical-information infrastructure, with (ii) a discretionary ex-officio review available up to 5 years post-closing for any other "public-order or internal-security" sensitive investment. The Government decides on MPO's recommendation; remedies include conditions, prohibition, and forced divestment, with fines up to 1% of the global net turnover of the foreign investor.