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

Romania's Government adopted Emergency Ordinance nr. 8/2026 on 24 February 2026, published in the Official Gazette (Monitorul Oficial) nr. 147 of 25 February 2026 and entering into force 1 March 2026, committing a EUR 5 billion (~RON 25 bn) horizontal economic-recovery and productive-investment envelope through 2032 structured around nine state-aid schemes, a 200% corporate R&D expense deduction (High-Tech Research Schema), a RON 1 bn Investment and Development Bank (BID) recapitalization, and a RON 1 bn EximBank export-credit allocation. The ordinance frames Romania's pivot "from consumption to investments as the engine of economic growth" and establishes a Strategic Investment tier (minimum RON 1 bn project value) qualifying for the highest-intensity state-aid eligibility, while introducing a 3% tax-compliance bonus and asset-expensing threshold raised to RON 5,000.

The Beijing Economic-Technological Development Zone (BDA / Yizhuang) Management Committee issued "Several Measures on Accelerating Brain-Computer Interface Technology and Industry Innovation Development" (Jingjiguanfa [2026] No. 2), announced 2026-02-04 and effective 2026-02-06 through 2028-12-31. The package comprises 15 initiatives across three pillars — technology/product development, innovation platform construction, and industrial ecosystem building — aimed at moving the BCI sector from research toward clinical translation and commercialization, positioning Yizhuang as a leading domestic and internationally recognized BCI technology and industry hub. It applies to entities legally operating in Yizhuang New City engaged in BCI R&D, product manufacturing, or platform services. No specific monetary figures are disclosed in the published policy interpretation.

The Fujian Provincial Development and Reform Commission issued Min Fagai Shuju [2026] No. 46, "Ten Measures to Strengthen the Cultivation of Digital-Economy Innovative Enterprises in Fujian Province," on 2026-01-30, implementing a national NDRC directive (Fagai Shuju [2025] No. 1154) at provincial level. The package bundles ten fiscal, financial, data-access and talent measures aimed at growing Fujian's roster of "unicorn" and "gazelle" digital enterprises from 89 (2020) to a targeted 500+ by 2027, with per-project subsidy caps ranging from RMB 500,000 up to RMB 10,000,000 across different tracks (trusted-data-space pilots, joint labs/tech-transfer platforms, digital-transformation demonstration projects capped at 30% of total project investment). The measure took effect on issuance and is in force through 2028-12-31 (GTA state-act revocation date).

The Hong Kong government launched the Pilot Innovation and Technology Accelerator Scheme (PITAS) on 29 January 2026, an HKD 180 million (approx. USD 23 million) matching-grant programme administered by the Innovation and Technology Commission. The scheme provides funding support on a one-to-two matching basis between the government and the applicant, capped at HKD 30 million per approved project, to attract professional innovation and technology (I&T) enterprise service providers with proven accelerator track records to set up startup-accelerator bases in Hong Kong. Applications close 30 April 2026.

On 26 January 2026 Beijing's Dongcheng District (via the Zhongguancun Science Park Dongcheng Zone Management Committee and the district Science and Technology Commission) issued Notice 东城园文〔2026〕2号, "Several Measures of Beijing Dongcheng District on Promoting High-Quality Development of the Pharmaceutical and Health Industry," effective 25 February 2026. The 14-article package spans seven chapters covering traditional-Chinese-medicine industry development, product-innovation value realisation, digital medical services, innovative-medicine support, and talent services, with cash grants of up to RMB 20 million per project and up to RMB 10 million per year for a single market entity in the medical-device segment. A draft version was open for public comment from 18 December 2025 to 17 January 2026 before formal issuance.

The New Development Bank (NDB), the BRICS-founded multilateral development bank headquartered in Shanghai, signed a USD 100 million equivalent, five-year RMB-denominated loan agreement with Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank Co Ltd for the "Greener Shanghai Project." The facility is an on-lending line: Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank will channel the proceeds to sustainable sub-projects across the city, including wind and solar power, environmental-conservation infrastructure, and digital-infrastructure development, expected to benefit roughly 25 million residents of Shanghai and the wider Yangtze River Delta. NDB below-market development-bank pricing functions as an indirect state-adjacent subsidy for Shanghai's green and digital-infrastructure build-out.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 1.981 billion (~USD 374 million) financing operation, drawn from the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante, FMM), for Bram Offshore Transportes Marítimos Ltda — a subsidiary of the US-headquartered Edison Chouest Offshore group and Brazil's largest offshore-support vessel operator. The loan funds the newbuild construction, by July 2028, of six diesel-electric hybrid PSV 5000-class support vessels at the Navship shipyard in Navegantes, Santa Catarina, chartered to Petrobras under 12-year contracts. The project is expected to create 620 direct shipyard jobs during construction and 190 direct operational jobs at Bram.

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 People's Bank of China announced on 2026-01-15 that it is widening the scope of its Carbon Emission Reduction Support Tool (碳减排支持工具) to cover energy-saving retrofits, green upgrades, and energy green low-carbon transformation projects with direct carbon-reduction effects. The tool operates on a quarterly basis, providing one-year relending funds to financial institutions at below-market rates against qualifying green loans they extend, with total annual operation volume capped at CNY 800 billion (approximately USD 115 billion). PBOC sets each quarter's operation volume based on monetary-policy needs and financial institutions' actual lending to the newly-widened set of supported project categories.

At a 2026-01-15 State Council Information Office press conference, PBOC Deputy Governor and spokesperson Zou Lan announced eight structural monetary-policy measures, including a CNY 500 billion increase to the agriculture/small-business relending-and-rediscount facility (支农支小 再贷款), within which a new CNY 1 trillion private-enterprise relending line (民营企业再贷款) is carved out to target small and medium-sized private firms specifically. The PBOC also cut relending/rediscount rates across all structural tools by 0.25 percentage points effective 2026-01-19 (one-year relending rate down from 1.5% to 1.25%).

The British Business Bank, the UK government's state-owned economic development bank, committed GBP 34 million (USD 45.7 million) to WestBridge III, a lower-mid-market private equity fund managed by WestBridge, announced 13 January 2026. The commitment helped the fund reach its GBP 225 million hard cap, up from WestBridge II's GBP 102 million final close (which itself included a GBP 15 million BBB commitment in 2017). WestBridge targets high-growth, tech-enabled B2B companies outside London and the South East, typically investing GBP 10-40 million per deal.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 500 million (~USD 92 million) credit limit for Toyota do Brasil Ltda. on 5 January 2026 to support acquisition of high-value-added Industry 4.0 machinery, equipment and technological services for new hybrid flex-fuel vehicle projects at its Sorocaba (SP) operations. The financing is drawn under the BNDES Mais Inovação programme, which conditions support on expanding the bank's registered supplier base for nationally-sourced ("conteúdo nacional") innovative equipment, and will also help fund the recovery of Toyota's Porto Feliz (SP) plant, which was damaged by severe storms in September 2025.

The US Department of Energy announced $2.7 billion in task-order funding over ten years to rebuild domestic uranium enrichment capacity: $900 million each to American Centrifuge Operating and General Matter to develop high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enrichment capacity, $900 million to Orano Federal Services to expand low-enriched uranium (LEU) enrichment capacity, and $28 million to Global Laser Enrichment for next-generation enrichment technology. DOE frames the awards as reducing US reliance on foreign — chiefly Russian — enriched uranium supply and securing fuel for the country's 94 commercial reactors and future advanced-reactor deployment, with funds distributed under a milestone-based accountability framework.

France increased the budgeted fiscal cost of its standing reduced electricity-excise (accise sur l'électricité) scheme for data storage centres for calendar year 2026. The underlying mechanism, codified at Article L312-70 of the Code des impositions sur les biens et services (CIBS), applies a reduced excise tariff to the fraction of a qualifying data centre's annual electricity consumption exceeding 1 GWh, conditional on meeting eight cumulative infrastructure and energy-efficiency criteria (dedicated digital-data storage/processing/transport function, secured access, energy-management-system certification, waste-heat recovery or efficiency indicators, water-use limits, and a minimum electro-intensity threshold of 2.25%). The scheme is a long-running (since 2019) fiscal-support instrument for France's data-centre industrial base rather than a new measure; GTA logs the 2026 budget increase as a discrete state-aid intervention.