Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

NIB, the multilateral development bank owned by the eight Nordic and Baltic member states, signed a EUR 11.4 million 10-year loan with Metrosert AS, Estonia's national testing, calibration and certification body, to finance a new Drone Technology Unit within Metrosert's Applied Research Centre in Tallinn. The unit will house nine laboratories to develop, validate and industrialise unmanned aerial, ground and maritime systems, with most planned activity explicitly defence-related, covering unmanned aviation, communications, navigation, flight physics and hardware security. NIB financing at preferential development-bank rates functions as a below-market state-backed subsidy to a strategic dual-use research facility; the unit is targeted to be fully operational by summer 2027 as part of a EUR 42.9 million total Applied Research Centre build-out.

India's Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways notified operational guidelines on 26 December 2025 for two paired shipbuilding subsidy schemes with a combined outlay of ₹44,700 crore (~USD 5.4bn). SBFAS (₹24,736 crore corpus) provides 15–25% per-vessel financial assistance tiered by vessel category, with milestone-linked disbursement and a 40% scrap-value credit for vessels broken at Indian yards. SbDS (₹19,989 crore outlay) funds greenfield shipbuilding clusters, brownfield-yard modernisation, and establishment of an India Ship Technology Centre. Both schemes are valid to 31 March 2036 with an in-principle extension to 2047, with applicability for shipbuilding contracts signed from 24 September 2025. On 7 January 2026 the guidelines were amended to include chemical tankers under SBFAS Category-1.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Japan's state export-credit and outbound-investment finance institution, signed a loan agreement on 2025-12-22 providing JPY 135 billion (approx. USD 865 million) to Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL), co-financed alongside private financial institutions for a total facility of JPY 250 billion. The loan finances part of the funds MOL used to acquire LBC Tank Terminals Group Holding Netherlands Coöperatief U.A., a chemical tank-terminal operator with core operations in Europe and the US; the acquisition itself completed in June 2025.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Japan's state export-credit and outbound-investment finance institution, signed a loan agreement on 2025-12-22 providing approximately USD 189 million toward a syndicated facility for UnicornMark Discovery Pte. Ltd., a special-purpose vehicle incorporated by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) to own Singapore's first floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU). Co-lenders are MUFG Bank, DBS Bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, and Standard Chartered (Singapore). The vessel will be chartered to Singapore LNG Corporation, the state-owned LNG terminal operator, under a leasing/operation/maintenance arrangement.

India's Union Cabinet, chaired by PM Narendra Modi, approved a ₹25,000 crore ($3bn) Maritime Development Fund (MDF) on 24 September 2025 as part of the broader ₹69,725 crore shipbuilding and maritime package. The MDF comprises a ₹20,000 crore Maritime Investment Fund (MIF) — a blended-finance Category-I Alternative Investment Fund with the Government of India contributing up to 49% of capital at concessional rates and the remaining 51% raised from ports and private/commercial investors — and a ₹5,000 crore Interest Incentivization Fund (IIF) that subsidises loan interest costs for shipyards and shipowners to lower the effective cost of debt. The fund is designed to run through FY 2026-36 and is projected to catalyse up to ₹1.5 lakh crore (~$18bn) in maritime-sector investment by 2030, covering shipbuilding, ship repair, ports, inland waterways, coastal shipping and tonnage-capacity expansion.

On 22 July 2025 the Government of Quebec, via Investissement Québec, announced a CAD 145 million (~USD 106 million) capital injection into Groupe Océan, a Quebec-based shipbuilding, harbour-towing and dredging firm. The package comprises CAD 75 million in preferred shares from the Quebec government plus CAD 34 million from the Fund for the Growth of Quebec Businesses and CAD 36 million from Investissement Québec's own equity funds. The stated purpose is to expand Groupe Océan's shipyards (Quebec City and L'Isle-aux-Coudres), preserve its head office and ~1,120 jobs in Quebec, and position the firm to win work under Canada's federal National Shipbuilding Strategy.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Japan's state export-credit and outbound-investment finance institution, signed a loan agreement on 2025-06-27 providing USD 252 million toward a syndicated facility for White Eagle Energy Limited, a Cyprus-registered special-purpose vehicle wholly owned by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL). Co-lenders are Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank. The facility finances White Eagle's acquisition of a newly built floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) — Poland's first — which will be chartered to Operator Gazociągów Przesyłowych GAZ-SYSTEM S.A., Poland's state-owned gas transmission operator, under a leasing/operation/maintenance arrangement.

On 25 June 2025 the Government of Ontario announced the CAD 15 million (~USD 11 million) Ontario Shipbuilding Grant Program (OSGP), part of a wider CAD 215 million package to support the province's shipbuilding and marine sector. OSGP offers non-repayable grants covering up to 50% of eligible project costs for skills training, infrastructure improvements, and machinery/equipment purchases at Ontario shipyards. The stated purpose is to expand provincial shipbuilding capacity in support of Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy and to bolster Ontario manufacturers facing US tariffs and economic uncertainty; applications opened in late July 2025 via Transfer Payment Ontario, with a first intake running July-September 2025.

The European Commission on 20 May 2025 published the results of the second EU Hydrogen Bank auction (IF24), selecting 15 renewable hydrogen production projects across five European Economic Area countries to share approximately €992 million in Innovation Fund grants. Winning projects span transport, chemicals, methanol, and ammonia end-uses; three projects were selected under a dedicated maritime-fuels lot. Spain, Lithuania, and Austria committed over €700 million in additional national co-funding via the Auctions-as-a-Service mechanism, bringing total public support above €1.69 billion and marking the first large-scale EEA co-funded hydrogen auction.

The European Commission approved, under EU State aid rules (Case SA.111368), Italy's reintroduction of tax and social-security relief for shipping companies that register vessels in the Italian International Register ("Registro Internazionale"). The scheme, worth an estimated EUR 5.4 billion, runs for a ten-year period from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2033 and grants qualifying operators — including cruise-ship shipboard concessionaires — corporate income-tax reductions, withholding-tax credits, and exemptions from seafarer social-security and welfare contributions. The stated aim is to encourage ship registration under EU/EEA flags, strengthen the competitiveness of the Italian-flagged fleet, and raise compliance with EU social, environmental and safety standards; undertakings in financial difficulty are excluded.