Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2665 actions· ✨ 90 recent

China's Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce, People's Bank of China and National Financial Regulatory Administration jointly issued Cai Jin [2026] No. 5 on 2026-01-19, optimizing the service-sector loan interest-subsidy policy first launched in August 2025 (Cai Jin [2025] No. 81). The notice extends the scheme through 2026-12-31, raises the per-entity eligible new-loan cap for 2026 to RMB 10 million (subsidy period capped at one year, annual subsidy rate of 1 percentage point, funded 90% by central and 10% by provincial finances), and widens covered sectors from the original eight (catering/accommodation, health, eldercare, childcare, domestic services, culture/entertainment, tourism, sports) to add digital, green and retail categories. It also expands the roster of handling banks to a longer list of state and joint-stock commercial banks.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) awarded a AUD 18.07 million grant to energy retailer Flow Power under the "Driving the Nation Program" to build the "Flow Power Highway" — a minimum 10-site, up to 84-charger ultrafast battery-electric-vehicle (BEV) charging network across Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, delivering 29.4 MW of total charging capacity. The AUD 18.07 million grant leverages a AUD 70.23 million total project value, with Flow Power partnering UK charge-point operator GRIDSERVE (via its GIGATONS venture) for hardware, software and analytics. Announced 10 December 2025 alongside two smaller ARENA EV-infrastructure grants (Essential Energy AUD 2.3m for regional NSW chargers; UTS/RACE for 2030 CRC AUD 1.09m for a national vehicle-grid-integration network).

The UK's National Wealth Fund (NWF), the state-owned economic development bank, committed GBP 25 million (USD 32.8 million) of debt financing to Roam, a Denham Capital-backed EV charge-point operator, as part of a GBP 65 million debt-raise announced 12 November 2025 alongside NatWest and Triodos Bank UK. The financing supports Roam's pipeline to deploy 40,000 AC "destination" fast-charging points (workplaces, hotels, residential buildings, retail), up from roughly 3,000 installed at announcement.

China's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce jointly issued Cai Jian [2025] No. 342 ("Notice on Developing International Consumption Environment Construction Work") on 2025-09-28, launching a two-year central-fiscal subsidy scheme for roughly 15 pilot cities competitively selected to build "internationalised consumption environments." Designated international consumption center cities receive RMB 200 million each over two years; other selected pilot cities receive RMB 100 million each. Funds are earmarked for accommodation, catering/food service, retail, inbound tourism, duty-free, sports and cultural-tourism venues, targeting improved service quality and product supply for inbound visitors and foreign merchants. Provincial commerce and finance departments were required to submit implementation plans by 2025-10-24.

China's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce jointly issued Cai Jian [2025] No. 341 ("Notice on Conducting Pilot Work for New Consumption Business Forms, Models, and Scenarios") on 2025-09-28, a sibling scheme to the same-day international consumption environment notice (Cai Jian [2025] No. 342). Roughly 50 prefecture-level-and-above cities will be selected, prioritising large, high-growth metros, for a two-year central-fiscal subsidy covering three focus areas: "first-launch economy" services (debut centres/platforms for new fashion, electronics, cosmetics and automotive product launches), AI/metaverse-enabled service consumption scenarios in culture, tourism, health and sport, and cross-sector IP-branded themed stores and concept spaces. Super-large/mega cities receive RMB 400 million each, large cities RMB 300 million each, and other selected cities RMB 200 million each, disbursed in two batches.

On 28 July 2025 the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government issued Hufubangui [2025] No. 6, the "Shanghai Embodied Intelligence Industry Development Implementation Plan" (上海市具身智能产业发展实施方案), a dedicated municipal state-aid package to build Shanghai into a global innovation hub for embodied intelligence (humanoid robotics / physical AI). The plan targets an industry scale of CNY 500 billion by 2027, alongside at least 20 core algorithm/technology breakthroughs, four or more high-quality incubators, and "100-100-100" targets for leading enterprises, applications and products. Support is disbursed as tiered direct subsidies capped at CNY 50 million (30% of project cost) for core-technology R&D, CNY 40 million per company per year for computing-power credits, CNY 20 million (50% of cost) for public-platform construction, CNY 10 million (20% of cost) for application-demonstration projects, CNY 5 million per company per year for language-corpus services, CNY 5 million (5% of contract value) for robot sales/rental incentives, CNY 5 million per open-source project, and CNY 1 million per leading enterprise for standards development. Target application sectors are logistics, industrial manufacturing, retail, healthcare/eldercare and domestic services.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 100 million (~USD 18 million) financing package for BRQ Digital Solutions, funded through the BNDES Mais Inovação program, to build 17 technical accelerators for the company's proprietary generative-AI platform "Fusion BRQ." The operation is aligned with Mission 4 (Digital Transformation) of Nova Indústria Brasil, the federal government's industrial policy, and is projected to create roughly 60 new R&D jobs. The AI platform targets accelerated software development across finance, healthcare, energy, insurance, retail, agriculture and telecom client sectors.

Japan's government, acting through the "Comprehensive Countermeasures Headquarters for US Tariff Measures" (established after the April 2025 Trump reciprocal-tariff announcement), decided on 27 May 2025 to draw JPY 388.1 billion from FY2025 budget reserves for tariff-cushioning relief. JPY 288.1 billion reactivates the electricity and city-gas bill subsidy (JPY 2/kWh electricity, JPY 8/m3 city gas) for July-September 2025 usage, cutting an average household's summer utility bill by roughly JPY 3,000. The remaining JPY 100 billion funds increased subsidies to local governments supporting businesses' electricity and LPG costs and expanded funding support to SMEs via government-backed lenders. METI issued special retail-tariff authorizations to electric and city-gas utilities on 25 June 2025 to implement the July-September discount.