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

Presidential decree signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum and published in the evening edition of the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 23 April 2026, in force 24 April 2026. The decree amends the Tariff of the Ley de los Impuestos Generales de Importación y de Exportación (LIGIE/TIGIE) and the Decreto que establece diversos Programas de Promoción Sectorial (PROSEC), imposing MFN import duties at 5%, 10%, 15%, 25%, 30% or 35% ad valorem on 185 tariff fractions covering chemical products, cosmetics, paper and cardboard, textiles, steel, graphic arts, aluminum manufactures, auto parts, electrical material, bicycles, musical instruments, furniture, wind turbines, and trailers. Goods originating in countries with which Mexico has a free-trade agreement remain eligible for preferential treatment, so practical incidence falls on China and other non-FTA suppliers (Korea, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Taiwan, UAE, South Africa). Paired PROSEC modifications add tariff fractions to Article 5 sections I, II.b and XIX (electrical, electronic, automotive and auto-parts industries) at exempt (EX) rates.

The European Commission approved Germany's €3.8 billion industrial electricity price relief scheme (Industriestrompreis, State Aid Case SA.120495) on 16 April 2026 under Section 5 of the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), covering the period 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2028. The scheme compensates companies in 91 electricity- and trade-intensive sectors for electricity costs above a reference wholesale price floor, subject to a binding conditionality requiring reinvestment of at least 50% of aid in decarbonisation assets within 48 months. The Commission approved the German scheme as part of a coordinated three-Member-State decision also covering parallel Bulgarian and Slovenian electricity price relief schemes, with the combined package totalling approximately €4.22 billion. This is the largest individual CISAF disbursement approved to date, at 11.4× the scale of the parallel Bulgaria SA.120414 scheme (€334m), and establishes the Section-5 upper-bound precedent for EU energy-intensive-industry relief.

On 7 April 2026, Morocco's Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, Leila Benali, officially launched the Cadastre Minier Numérique du Maroc (dmcm.mem.gov.ma) at GITEX Africa in Marrakech — a national digital registry consolidating geological potential data, administrative records and regulatory information for all mining titles nationwide. The platform dematerialises permit application, renewal and monitoring procedures previously run through paper-based, region-by-region administrative circuits, and is framed by MTEDD as part of a broader ongoing mining sector reform. No budget, title count, or phased-deployment timeline was disclosed at launch.

On 11 March 2026 USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer initiated parallel Section 301 investigations into the acts, policies, and practices of 16 economies — China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan, and India — relating to structural excess capacity and overproduction in manufacturing sectors. The Federal Register notice (FR doc 2026-05214; dockets USTR-2026-0067 and USTR-2026-0068) was published on 17 March 2026. Covered sectors include aluminum, automobiles, batteries, cement, chemicals, electronics, energy goods, glass, machine tools, machinery, paper, plastics, processed food and beverages, robotics, satellites, semiconductors, ships, solar modules, steel, and transportation equipment. Written comments were due by 15 April 2026; USTR held the public hearing beginning 5 May 2026. This is the most sweeping multi-economy Section 301 initiative since the 2018 China investigation and is structurally distinct from the China-only 2024-05-14 §301 tariff hikes and the 2025-07-15 Brazil §301 investigation.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 400 million, seven-year loan agreement with Swedish hygiene and health group Essity on 29 January 2026 (EIB project ref. 20210374, "Essity Health and Hygiene Products RDI") to finance research, development and innovation expenditure at Essity's R&D centres in Sweden, Germany and France over 2025-2028. The financing targets product and process development across Personal Care, Professional Hygiene and medical wound care, with emphasis on replacing fossil-based plastics with bio-based materials, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions and expanding digital manufacturing solutions; roughly 30% of the RDI spend is earmarked for feminine-care and incontinence-product research. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked lending intervention (state act 96020 / intervention 151945).

Türkiye's Ministry of Trade published Tebliğ No. 2026/1 ("İthalatta Gözetim Uygulanmasına İlişkin Tebliğ") in the Official Gazette on 31 December 2025 (Sayı 33124, 4. Mükerrer), entering into force 30 January 2026. It imposes a reference-price-triggered import surveillance regime on photosensitive magnesium printing plates (GTİP 3701.30.00.00.21, USD 40/kg floor) and on kraft paper and kraft paperboard across several GTİP lines (4804.11.xx and 4804.21.xx, USD 0.7/kg and USD 1/kg floors respectively). Imports declared below these unit customs values require a surveillance certificate ("gözetim belgesi") from the Ministry's Import Directorate General before customs clearance, valid six months.

Decree reforming various tariff fractions of the General Import and Export Duties Tariff (TIGIE), published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 29 December 2025 and in force 1 January 2026. The reform, approved by Congress as a statutory amendment to the LIGIE (Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Dec 2025) and signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum, raises MFN import duties to between 5% and 50% ad valorem on 1,463 tariff lines covering more than 20 chapters of the TIGIE, spanning automotive, auto parts, textiles, apparel, footwear, steel, aluminum, plastics, paper, leather, furniture, glass, toys, appliances and cosmetics. The increases apply only to goods originating in countries without a free trade agreement with Mexico — principally China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei, the UAE, and South Africa. The decree formalises at statutory level the September 2024 Sheinbaum executive order placing a 50% duty on finished passenger vehicles from non-FTA states and is framed by the Secretaría de Economía and SHCP as the operational tariff instrument of Plan México (2025-01-21).

On 26 December 2025 the Peruvian executive promulgated and published in El Peruano Ley N° 32537, modifying Decreto Legislativo 1293 to extend the Registro Integral de Formalización Minera (REINFO) — Peru's artisanal-and-small-scale mining formalisation registry — through 31 December 2026, or until the new MAPE Law and its regulations enter into force, whichever occurs first. The statute is the parent instrument above DS 009-2025-EM (May 2025) and pushes the formalisation regime — which previously had a 30 June 2025 sunset under Ley 32213 — out by another 18 months. It also (i) orders a national MAPE census run by INEI, MINEM and INGEMMET (to begin within six months and conclude within twelve), (ii) requires REINFO registrants to declare real operational coordinates within 120 days via the Ventanilla Única de Formalización Minera, (iii) compels regional governments to transfer their formalisation paper and digital archives to MINEM within 60 days, and (iv) directs SUNAFIL to issue payroll-compliance verification rules for REINFO holders within 60 days. The law affects ~80,000+ artisanal and small-scale miners and is the statutory ceiling under which Peru's gold and copper-concentrate export chain operates.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved R$1.05 billion (~USD 179 million) in support for Eldorado Brasil Celulose (J&F group) to build an 86.7km private railway linking its Três Lagoas (MS) pulp mill to a terminal at Aparecida do Taboado (MS), feeding the Rondonópolis-Santos export corridor. R$1 billion is structured as BNDES's subscription of the first infrastructure debentures issued under Brazil's Law 14,801/2024, with a further R$50 million via the conventional Finem credit line. The financing reduces Eldorado's logistics costs and displaces an estimated 50,000 truck trips per year, indirectly reinforcing Brazil's cost advantage over competing pulp exporters such as Uruguay's UPM and Montes del Plata mills.

The European Commission approved on 15 December 2025 a EUR 408 million Spanish state aid scheme (SA.119880) under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), funded by the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), to support decarbonisation of manufacturing industry. The scheme funds direct grants — capped at EUR 200 million per company or project — for investments in electrification, switching to renewable or low-carbon hydrogen, waste heat recovery, and carbon capture, storage and utilisation (CCUS) across a wide range of sectors including chemicals, ceramics, paper and metallurgy. Aid is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis to enterprises of all sizes, inside and outside the EU Emissions Trading System, and cannot finance increases in production capacity; Spain expects the scheme to deliver annual emissions savings of around 1.6 megatonnes of CO2, with beneficiary projects required to become operational within 60 months of the aid grant.

On 9 December 2025, Saudi Arabia's Local Content & Government Procurement Authority (LCGPA) issued the December 2025 batch expansion of its Mandatory List — a binding instrument requiring government entities, state-owned enterprises, and sub-contractors to source listed products exclusively from Saudi domestic manufacturers meeting the LCGPA-defined local-content threshold. The December 2025 expansion brings the list to approximately 1,444 national products across 16 sectors, effective 1 March 2026, with LCGPA targeting a total of approximately 2,000 products by end-2026. The Mandatory List operationalises the demand-side layer of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 / National Industrial Strategy (NIS) industrial-policy stack, directly restricting foreign-supplier access to Saudi annual government-procurement budgets estimated at SAR 500 billion+ across central government, Aramco, PIF-portfolio entities, Ma'aden, SEC, STC, Saudi Post, and Saudi Railway.

On December 9, 2025, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) made final determinations of dumping (margin of 282.1% of export price) and subsidizing (77.0% of export price, or CNY 10,134.87 per metric tonne) with respect to thermal paper rolls originating in or exported from China, classified primarily under HS 4811.90.00.90. On January 8, 2026, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) found that the dumped and subsidized imports caused injury to the domestic industry, making the antidumping and countervailing duties definitive. The CBSA received insufficient cooperation from the Chinese government and exporters/producers, so all Chinese exporters are subject to the combined "all others" rate.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 451.7 million (~USD 85 million) in financing for pulp and paper producer Suzano SA to modernise and revitalise industrial units and expand storage capacity at five plants: Aracruz (ES), Limeira (SP), Mogi das Cruzes (SP), Mucuri (BA) and Três Lagoas (MS). The loan is split BRL 342.8 million from the conventional Finem (Financing of Investment in Industry) credit line and BRL 108.9 million from the Fundo Clima (Climate Fund), against a total project investment of BRL 700 million. BNDES projects the financing will support 670 direct and 286 indirect jobs during implementation and cut natural gas consumption by roughly 10.5 million m³/year (~25,000 tCO2e/year avoided) through steam-use optimisation.

Brazil's Gecex/Camex approved Resolução Gecex Nº 816 on 11 November 2025, effective 13 November 2025 and set to expire 12 November 2026, amending Annex IX of the base tariff-nomenclature Resolução Gecex Nº 272/2021 (the "List of Tariff Increases for Reasons of Trade Imbalances Derived from the International Economic Situation"). The measure bundles two opposite-direction interventions across six products/NCM lines: a temporary import-tariff increase on five products, and a temporary import-tariff decrease on one product (NCM 7610.90.00, aluminium structures and parts thereof). It affects sectors including pulp and paper, other plastics products, and structural metal products.

Brazil's Foreign Trade Executive Committee (GECEX/CAMEX) imposed a definitive anti-dumping duty for up to five years on imports of rutile-type titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigments classified under NCM 3206.11.10 (minimum 80% TiO2 content) originating in China, via Resolução GECEX nº 802 signed 23 October 2025 and published in the Diário Oficial da União on 24 October 2025. The duty is levied as a specific tariff ranging from USD 1,148.72 to USD 1,267.74 per metric tonne depending on the identified Chinese producer/exporter. A subsequent public-interest review (Circular SECEX nº 21/2026) was opened in March 2026 and could suspend or modify the measure if a public-interest finding is made.

The Government of Ontario provided a CAD 16.8 million (~USD 12 million) loan to Kap Paper Inc. to support continued operation of its Kapuskasing paper mill in northeastern Ontario, following weeks of provincially-led discussions between the province, the company, and the federal government. The mill had begun idling operations in September 2025 amid financial strain compounded by US Section 232 softwood lumber and derivative-products tariffs. The provincial loan was paired with a CAD 12 million federal contribution (FedNor/Northern Ontario Development Program and Regional Economic Growth through Innovation), bringing combined near-term support to roughly CAD 28.8 million, intended to protect around 300 direct mill jobs and 2,500 direct/indirect forestry positions in the region while Kap Paper develops a longer-term modernization and product-diversification plan.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank reached financial close on a CAD 660 million (approx. USD 473 million) loan to Irving Pulp & Paper to support "Project NextGen," a CAD 1.5 billion modernization of the company's Kraft pulp mill in west Saint John, New Brunswick — the largest investment in the Canadian forest products industry since 1993. The financing replaces 1970s-era recovery-boiler and steam-turbine technology, adds up to 145 MW of renewable generation capacity (50 MW for mill use, the remainder exported to the provincial grid), and is projected to cut emissions per tonne of Kraft pulp by 50% while eliminating heavy-fuel-oil combustion.

On 23 September 2025 the European Commission approved, under EU State aid rules (case SA.120081), a EUR 100 million budget increase to Portugal's scheme compensating energy-intensive companies for indirect emission costs — the higher electricity prices passed through from carbon costs under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). The increase raises the scheme's total budget to EUR 275 million and was notified to avoid a significant reduction in per-company compensation levels for costs incurred during 2021-2030 (final payments due 2031). The Commission found the amended scheme continues to satisfy the ETS State aid Guidelines, which exist to prevent carbon leakage — energy-intensive firms relocating production outside the EU to jurisdictions with less ambitious climate policy.

On 27 May 2026 the US Department of Commerce published preliminary affirmative determinations that high purity dissolving pulp from Brazil and Norway is being sold in the United States at less than fair value, setting preliminary antidumping cash-deposit rates of 7.20% for Brazil and 6.54% for Norway (period of investigation: 1 July 2024 – 30 June 2025). Brazil is also subject to a companion preliminary countervailing duty determination (published 25 March 2026) with rates of 3.67% for Bracell Bahia Specialty Cellulose S.A. and 3.56% for all other Brazilian producers/exporters; Commerce offsets the AD cash-deposit rate by the export-subsidy portion of the CVD rate to avoid double counting. The investigations were initiated 2 September 2025 (notice published 8 September 2025) on a petition by Rayonier Advanced Materials, Inc. and the United Steelworkers (USW).

India's DGFT issued Notification No. 26/2025-26 on 22 August 2025, amending the import policy condition under Chapter 48 of ITC (HS) 2022, Schedule-I for Virgin Multi-layer Paper Board (VPB, HS codes 48059100, 48059200, 48059300, 48109200 and 48109900). Imports remain "Free" but are now subject to compulsory registration under the Paper Import Monitoring System (PIMS) and a Minimum Import Price (MIP) of INR 67,220 per metric tonne on CIF value; consignments declared below that floor are reclassified as "Restricted" and require a DGFT authorisation before Customs clearance. Global Trade Alert records China, Brazil and Chile among the affected exporters. The measure was originally set to lapse 31 March 2026 but has since been extended twice, most recently to 30 September 2026.

At its 32nd regular session on 10 August 2025, chaired by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al-Sudani, Iraq's Council of Ministers approved two additional customs duties on imports from all countries of origin: a 75% additional duty on the unit measure of imported paper napkins/tissues, and a 30% additional duty on the unit measure of white polystyrene plates and food-storage containers. Both duties run for four years without reduction, with domestic-market monitoring during the application period, and took effect 120 days after issuance (10 December 2025). Global Trade Alert logs China, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye as the principal supplier origins affected, though the measure itself is non-discriminatory (applies to all origins).

Brazil's Câmara de Comércio Exterior executive committee (Gecex) approved Resolução nº 770, de 25 de julho de 2025, amending Annexes II and V of the base tariff-nomenclature resolution (Gecex nº 272/2021). The resolution raises the import tariff on raw kraft paper/cardboard (NCM 4707.10.00) and other recovered/waste paper or cardboard (NCM 4707.90.00) to 18%, valid 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2026, and sets a 3.8% duty on glyphosate and its monoisopropylammonium salt (NCM 2931.49.14) valid 15 August 2025 to 14 August 2027. It also removes carbon steel with carbon content of 0.6% or more by weight (NCM 7213.91.10) from the reduced-tariff annex.

The UK Department for Business and Trade, with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, published "The UK's Modern Industrial Strategy" (Command Paper CP 1451) on 23 June 2025, laid before Parliament via Written Statement HCWS725. It is the first cross-economy industrial strategy under the Starmer Labour government and replaces the 2017 Industrial Strategy (withdrawn in 2021). It sets a ten-year horizon focused on business investment, productivity and resilience, designates eight priority growth sectors ("IS-8"), and packages instruments including British Business Bank capacity expansion, the National Wealth Fund's GBP 27.8bn envelope, a permanent statutory Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, planning and skills reforms, and sector-specific Sector Plans published alongside.

On 21 May 2025, Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 71.4 million (~USD 12.6 million) loan to BO Paper Brasil Indústria de Papéis, financed through the Novo Fundo Clima (New Climate Fund), to adapt its Jaguariaíva (Paraná) packaging-paper plant to run on a 50% virgin / 50% recycled fiber input mix. The plant is Latin America's largest packaging-paper producer. Total project investment is approximately BRL 93.2 million, targeting 160,000 tons of installed capacity and a claimed ~16.6 thousand tons/year reduction in CO2e emissions (~48.9% versus the counterfactual all-virgin-fiber process).

Spain's Ministry of Industry and Tourism (MINCOTUR) provisionally approved EUR 90 million in grants across five industrial-decarbonisation projects under Line 4 of the PERTE Descarbonización (Spain's Recovery-and-Resilience-Plan-funded strategic decarbonisation programme). The largest award, EUR 60 million, went to Hydnum Puertollano (Ciudad Real) for a green-steel mill; other recipients were Biotérmica Villanueva (EUR 12m for a biomass plant converting orange waste to energy in Huelva, plus EUR 4.6m for an olive-pomace renewable-energy plant in Lebrija, Sevilla), Alier (EUR 9.6m, sustainable recycled-paper production in Zaragoza), and Cimsa Cementos España (EUR 3.7m, emissions reduction in Buñol, Valencia cement manufacturing). The announcement, made by Industry Minister Jordi Hereu on 23 April 2025, brought total PERTE Descarbonización disbursement to approximately EUR 570 million across 93 projects nationwide.

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.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, through the International Trade Administration's Enforcement and Compliance unit, issued a final rule revising the annexes to 19 CFR Part 351 to modernize the forms, certifications, and instructions used by parties to antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) proceedings. The modernization updates legacy paperwork (entries-of-appearance, questionnaire certifications, scope-application templates, service lists) for the electronic ACCESS filing era and aligns the annexes with Commerce's 2024 substantive AD/CVD rulemakings. A correcting amendment published 31 March 2025 (FR Doc. 2025-05482) fixed inadvertent date and regulatory-language errors in the December rule but left its substantive content unchanged.

Regulation (EU) 2025/40, published in the Official Journal on 22 January 2025 and entering into force on 11 February 2025, replaces the 1994 Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive 94/62/EC with a directly-applicable Regulation. It mandates binding recycled-content targets for plastic packaging (by polymer and format, reaching 30–65% by 2030 with higher targets by 2040), minimum reusable-packaging shares for beverages and transport, recyclability standards for all packaging placed on the EU market from 2030, deposit-return-scheme obligations for beverage containers from 2029, and bans on specified single-use plastic packaging formats. General application begins 12 August 2026, with staggered compliance windows extending to 2030 and beyond, affecting all non-EU exporters shipping consumer goods, beverages, or e-commerce fulfilment into the EU single market.

The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) initiated an anti-dumping investigation on 28 March 2024 concerning imports of Titanium Dioxide (TiO₂, pigment grade; HS 3206.11/3206.19) originating in or exported from China PR (file 14/51/2002-DGAD), on application of Indian domestic producers Travancore Titanium Products Ltd, Kerala Minerals & Metals Ltd (KMML), Meghmani Organochem Ltd, and VV Titanium Pigments Pvt Ltd. Final Findings were issued on 12 February 2025 recommending anti-dumping duties on Chinese TiO₂ imports; those findings were subsequently remanded by court order in October 2025, reopening the determination phase. DGTR issued a second Disclosure Statement on 12 May 2026 and extended the remand timeline on 18 May 2026, with revised Final Findings expected in Q3 2026. The investigation sits within a global TiO₂ anti-dumping cluster targeting Chinese producers alongside parallel EU provisional measures (2024) and USITC AD-CVD proceedings.

On 21 March 2024 the PPP Governing Board, acting as the PPP Code IRR Committee, signed the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 11966 — the Public-Private Partnership Code of the Philippines. The IRR was published in a newspaper of general circulation on 22 March 2024 and took effect on 6 April 2024, operationalising the parent law signed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on 5 December 2023. The Code replaces the 1990 Build-Operate-Transfer Law (RA 6957, as amended by RA 7718) and the patchwork of agency-by-agency Joint Venture Guidelines as the single unified national framework governing all PPPs across the national government, GOCCs, state universities, and local government units — covering economic, social, and information-technology infrastructure. Key reforms include removing the prior cap on reasonable rate of return for unsolicited proposals, formalising joint-venture as a PPP modality for GOCCs, centralising contract awards under the PPP Center, and materially shortening approval timelines.

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.

On 9 January 2024 the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) endorsed the government's White Paper Meld. St. 25 (2022–2023) by an 80–20 vote, authorising the opening of approximately 281,000 km² of Arctic continental-shelf area between mainland Norway, Jan Mayen and Svalbard for commercial seabed-mineral exploration. The decision operates under the 2019 Seabed Minerals Act (havbunnsmineralloven) and made Norway the first Western/NATO sovereign jurisdiction to authorise large-scale deep-sea mining for energy-transition critical minerals (polymetallic sulphides, manganese crusts containing copper, cobalt, lithium, zinc and rare earths). The Energy Ministry prepared a first licensing round in 2024 but the Støre government postponed it in December 2024 after budget-negotiation pressure from the Socialist Left (SV) party; the statutory authorisation remains in force.

On 6 October 2022 the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1904, amending Regulation (EU) No 833/2014, as the EU's eighth package of restrictive measures against Russia. It entered into force 7 October 2022. The regulation's headline measure creates the legal basis for an oil price-cap mechanism: a ban on maritime transport to third countries of Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products, becoming operational once the Council sets an actual cap level by a separate decision (the G7/EU $60/bbl cap followed on 3 December 2022). The package also expands import bans on steel products (phased through 2024), firearms and ammunition, wood pulp and paper, and certain chemicals, cosmetics and jewellery materials; extends export bans on aviation-sector goods; bans the provision of architectural, engineering, IT-consultancy and legal advisory services to the Russian government and Russian companies; and imposes restrictions on Russian-flagged vessels at the Russian Maritime Register.

On 21 April 2022 the UK announced import bans on Russian silver, wood products and other high-value goods (incl. caviar), alongside a 35-point tariff increase on selected Russian and Belarusian goods. The ban was legislated by the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 10) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/689, made 20 June, in force 23 June 2022), which inserted a new Schedule 3D ("revenue generating goods") and prohibitions 46T-46W: import of Schedule 3D goods originating in or consigned from Russia, their acquisition, supply/delivery into the UK and related technical assistance are prohibited, subject to Part 7 exceptions and licences. Schedule 3D covers all of HS chapter 44 (wood and articles of wood; wood charcoal), HS 7106 silver, plus e.g. caviar, cement, potassium chloride and NPK fertilisers, pulp and kraft paper, glass, and aluminium plate.

Russian Government Resolution No. 506 of 29 March 2022, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and effective 30 March 2022, authorises the Ministry of Industry and Trade (Minpromtorg) to designate categories of goods exempt from articles 1252(4), 1359(6) and 1487 of the Russian Civil Code on national/regional exhaustion of trademark and other intellectual- property rights. Followed by Minpromtorg Order No. 1532 of 19 April 2022 publishing an initial list of 55 goods categories and named brands — including pharmaceuticals, electronics, automotive parts, mineral fuels, industrial chemicals, paper, textiles, base metals, and consumer goods — for which parallel (grey-market) imports without IP-holder consent are legalised. Designed as a sanctions-circumvention and supply-substitution instrument after the Western corporate exodus of March 2022; extended annually and most recently re-authorised through 31 December 2026.