Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2670 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The Knesset enacted the Law for Encouragement of Knowledge-Intensive Industry (Temporary Order), 5783-2023 on 25 July 2023; it took effect on publication in Reshumot on 31 July 2023 and is scheduled to remain in force through 31 December 2026. The law — informally the "Angels Law" — packages four tax incentives aimed at sustaining Israel's high-tech sector: a capital-gains-rate-equivalent tax credit for individuals investing in Israeli R&D start-ups, capital-gains deferral on reinvestment of proceeds from Israeli tech-company share sales, five-year amortisation of net acquisition costs when Israeli technological companies acquire other (Israeli or foreign) hi-tech companies, and a withholding-tax exemption on interest paid by Israeli high-tech companies to foreign financial institutions. Beneficiaries are limited to companies with Preferred Technological Enterprise (PTE) status or R&D Company designation under the Israeli Encouragement of Capital Investments Law.

The UK government published its National Semiconductor Strategy on 19 May 2023, under Secretary of State Michelle Donelan at the newly established Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The strategy commits GBP 1 billion in long-run support to the UK semiconductor sector, explicitly focusing on the UK's identified strengths: chip design (Arm, Imagination Technologies, Dialog), compound and wide-bandgap semiconductors (III-V, SiC, GaN -- centred on the Cardiff/Newport cluster and IQE plc), and upstream academic R&D. Unlike the US CHIPS Act or EU Chips Act, the strategy explicitly declined to fund advanced silicon wafer fabrication at scale, acknowledging the prohibitive capital cost and the UK's lack of existing fab infrastructure at leading nodes. A UK Semiconductor Advisory Panel was established to guide delivery and assess emerging requirements. The strategy is enabled by the UK Subsidy Control Act 2022 (in force January 2023), which freed UK public authorities to grant large technology subsidies without prior EU Commission approval.

Loi n° 2023-973 du 23 octobre 2023 relative à l'industrie verte (the Green Industry Law) is France's first comprehensive industrial-policy framework since France 2030 (2021). Published in the Journal officiel on 24 October 2023, it pursues three objectives: (i) accelerate the siting of strategic industrial projects on French territory, (ii) channel public procurement toward "virtuous" companies, and (iii) mobilise private savings for green-industrial CapEx. Its centrepiece is the new "Projet d'intérêt national majeur" (PINM) status, an exceptional procedure that fast-tracks urban planning, environmental permitting, and grid connection for projects deemed strategic for ecological transition or national sovereignty (gigafactories, hydrogen electrolysers, advanced semiconductor fabs). The law also creates the Plan d'épargne avenir climat (PEAC), a long-duration retail savings product reserved for under-21s and earmarked for European green-industrial financing, and codifies a 2023-2030 national green-industry strategy.