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

On 8 May 2026 China's National Health Commission released a public consultation draft proposing material amendments to the 2023 Implementation Rules for the Administrative Regulations on Human Genetic Resources, with a comment deadline of 7 June 2026. The draft narrows the statutory "foreign party" definition to a bright-line 50% equity/voting threshold (excluding VIE-structured entities), restricts "HGR Information" strictly to nucleic-acid sequence data (excluding clinical, imaging, and metabolic data), removes the separate Article 37 security-review requirement for sensitive HGR datasets, and introduces a same-day or next-working-day fast-track confirmation for international clinical trials not involving HGR information export.

On 10 December 2025 the National Assembly of Vietnam adopted Law No. 134/2025/QH15 on Artificial Intelligence (8 chapters, 35 articles), Vietnam's first dedicated AI statutory framework and one of the first comprehensive horizontal AI laws in Southeast Asia. The law establishes a three-tier risk-based regulatory architecture (high / medium / low) for the research, development, provision, deployment, and use of AI systems; defines the rights and obligations of providers, deployers, importers, distributors, and users; and mandates state oversight via the Ministry of Information & Communications and Ministry of Science & Technology. Prohibited acts include systematic deception, manipulation of human perception, generation of fake content endangering national security, exploitation of vulnerable populations, and obstruction of human-supervision mechanisms. The law applies to Vietnamese agencies, organizations, and individuals as well as foreign organizations and individuals involved in AI-related activities in Vietnam, taking effect 1 March 2026 with 12-18 month transition windows for existing systems depending on sector.

China's State Council promulgated Order No. 818 on 28 September 2025 (effective 1 May 2026), establishing a comprehensive dual-track regulatory framework for biomedical new technologies — defined as techniques operating at the cellular or molecular level not yet clinically applied in China, covering cell therapy, gene editing, CAR-T, stem-cell, xenotransplantation, brain-computer interfaces, and nucleic-acid therapies. The regulation creates two parallel pathways: a traditional NMPA drug/device registration route and a new NHC-supervised clinical-research-to-commercialization track applicable to highly personalised or rare-disease therapies meeting staged safety and efficacy thresholds. Commercialisation under the NHC track is initially restricted to accredited Grade-3A medical institutions without full NMPA marketing approval, potentially accelerating patient access for qualifying technologies by 5–8 years relative to the standard registration pathway.

Papua New Guinea's National Parliament passed the National Petroleum Authority Act 2025 on 12 March 2025 (vote 84–0), establishing the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) as a new statutory regulator replacing the Department of Petroleum and Energy. The companion Oil and Gas (Amendment) Act 2025 was passed the same week, realigning the Oil and Gas Act 1998 licensing framework with NPA oversight. Both Acts commenced on 9 April 2025 via Notice in the National Gazette. A new 0.5% gross-revenue levy on crude oil, natural gas, LNG, condensates, and LPG applies to all Petroleum Production Licence holders, directly affecting ExxonMobil's PNG LNG (8.3 Mtpa), TotalEnergies' Papua LNG (4 Mtpa, FID expected 2026–27), and Santos' legacy Oil Search holdings.

Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on a Single Market For Digital Services (Digital Services Act, DSA) was adopted by the European Parliament and Council on 19 October 2022, published in OJ L 277 on 27 October 2022, entered into force on 16 November 2022, and applied in full from 17 February 2024 (with VLOP/VLOSE obligations applying from 25 August 2023 following the Commission's initial designation letters of February 2023). The DSA establishes a graduated intermediary-liability and platform-safety framework covering all online intermediaries serving EU users, with the heaviest obligations falling on designated Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs, ≥45m monthly active EU users) and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs): systemic-risk assessments, annual independent audits, vetted-researcher data access, recommender-system transparency, online-advertising transparency, and crisis-response cooperation mechanisms under Commission coordination. The European Commission holds exclusive enforcement authority over VLOPs and VLOSEs, with fines up to 6% of global turnover. The DSA is the structural twin-pillar to the Digital Markets Act (Reg (EU) 2022/1925): the DMA governs ex-ante competition obligations on designated gatekeepers; the DSA governs ex-post intermediary-liability, content-moderation, and platform-safety obligations across all online intermediaries.

Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 September 2022 on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector (Digital Markets Act, DMA) was published in OJ L 265 on 12 October 2022, entered into force on 1 November 2022, and applied for the most part from 2 May 2023. The DMA establishes an ex-ante competition framework imposing binding obligations and prohibitions on designated "gatekeepers" operating Core Platform Services (CPS) in the EU — covering search engines, social-networking services, video-sharing platforms, number-independent interpersonal communications, operating systems, web browsers, virtual assistants, cloud computing, online intermediation services, and online advertising. The European Commission designated six gatekeepers on 6 September 2023 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft); full compliance with all obligations was required by 7 March 2024. Subsequent designations added Booking.com (May 2024) and Apple iPadOS (April 2024). The DMA functions as the EU's structural anchor for ex-ante digital competition regulation, closing the enforcement gap left by ex-post competition law (Articles 101–102 TFEU) where market-tipping dynamics make remedies ineffective after the fact.

Regulation (EU) 2022/868 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2022 on European data governance — the Data Governance Act (DGA) — was published in the Official Journal on 3 June 2022, entered into force on 23 June 2022, and became fully applicable on 24 September 2023. The DGA is the second pillar of the EU data-economy framework (alongside GDPR for personal data and the Data Act 2023/2854 for industrial/IoT data) and establishes four structural mechanisms: (i) a harmonised public-sector data re-use regime for protected data held by public-sector bodies; (ii) a mandatory notification and structural-separation regime for data-intermediation service providers; (iii) a voluntary recognition framework for data-altruism organisations (RDAOs); and (iv) the European Data Innovation Board (EDIB) to co-ordinate national competent authorities and advise on common European data spaces and interoperability standards. The regulation is the foundational parent statute of the existing French SREN law filing (2024-05-21) and functions as enabling legislation for the EU's sectoral common-data-space programme (Health, Agriculture, Finance, Mobility, Green Deal, Energy, etc.).

Loi n° 2014-138, adopted by the Assemblée nationale and promulgated by President Alassane Ouattara on 24 March 2014, is the foundational mining-rights statute governing all mineral prospecting, research, and exploitation in Côte d'Ivoire. Its 197 articles across 16 titles repeal the prior Loi n° 95-553 (1995 Code Minier) and establish the modern permit regime, a 10% state free-carry in all industrial mining projects via SODEMI, and the royalty + ad valorem fiscal architecture that underpins every subsequent mining-convention and fiscal-law amendment. As West Africa's second-largest gold producer (approx. 45 t/yr) with growing bauxite and manganese exploration, CI's mining-code architecture is a material determinant of supply-chain access for Western and Chinese industrial consumers of these commodities.