Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

U.S. Customs and Border Protection published a final notice in Customs Bulletin and Decisions, Vol. 59, No. 49 (31 December 2025), modifying two New York ruling letters (NY N328585 and NY N326486, both dated 2022) that had classified certain decorative storage baskets ("Basket-MD" and "Basket-3PC" style products) under HTSUS heading 5609 (cotton cordage/twine articles) and 9403.89.6015 (household furniture of other materials), both duty-free. Per Headquarters Ruling Letter H342184, CBP reclassifies the goods to subheading 6307.90.98 ("other made up textile articles"), which carries a 7% general (MFN) duty rate. No comments were received on the September 2025 proposed notice. The change takes effect 60 days after publication, i.e. 1 March 2026, and also revokes/modifies any other unidentified ruling covering the same merchandise.

Cumhurbaşkanı Kararı No. 10790 (Resmi Gazete 31 December 2025, issue 33124 3rd reprint), in force 1 January 2026, restructures Türkiye's annual import-tariff architecture across 4,344 product lines from non-EU origins. The decree (i) introduces or expands additional customs duty (Ek Mali Yükümlülük / İlave Gümrük Vergisi) of 5%–48% on non-EU imports of iron and non-alloy steel, copper, aluminium, and base-metal household goods; (ii) introduces forward-looking import-surveillance measures across 172 products under 36 notifications, with reference-price floors that cap effective duty relief on under-valued shipments; (iii) updates duties on 324 Customs Tariff Statistical Positions across 21 chapters (219 HS lines raised by 2.4–15 percentage points; 8 lines under HS 7225/7228/8528/8529 raised by 3–14 points; 2 lines reduced by 6 points); (iv) opens duty-free tariff quotas for 35 industrial-product categories — including 27 battery / lithium-cell HS codes through 1 February 2027, 8m m² of plastic-treated textiles through 31 December 2026, and 40,725 tons of organic chemicals and aluminium sheets (16 February–31 December 2026); and (v) imposes a permit regime (6-month validity) on used and refurbished goods. EU and EU-Customs-Union origins remain exempt under A.TR preferential rules; the structural asymmetry vs non-EU partners is the core mechanism. Stated rationale (Ministry of Trade): support domestic production, prevent unfair competition, increase employment, reduce the current-account deficit.

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, Japan's Cabinet approved the FY2026 (Reiwa 8) national budget, which the Global Trade Alert database logs as including a "Project to Promote the Strengthening of Autonomous Resource Circulation Systems" financial-grant line administered by METI, effective with the fiscal year on 1 April 2026. The line is the continuation of METI's "Decarbonisation Growth-Type Economic Structure Transition Promotion Subsidy (Autonomous Resource Circulation System Strengthening Promotion Project)" (脱炭素成長型経済 構造移行推進対策費補助金（自律型資源循環システム強靱化促進事業）), which funds private-sector investment in recycled-material manufacturing and recovery equipment for rare metals/rare earths, automotive and small-electronics lithium-ion batteries, plastics, and textiles. Japanese budget-press reporting puts the FY2026 allocation at JPY 7.3 billion (73億円), up from JPY 3.0 billion (30億円) in FY2025 -- roughly a 2.4x year-on-year increase. METI opened the call for the executing body (執行団体) on 18 February 2026, with the General Incorporated Association for Low-Carbon Investment Promotion (GIO) again acting as the designated administrator, as it did for the FY2025 round.

On 24 December 2025 China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) jointly issued Order No. 37, the Catalogue for Encouraging Foreign Investment in Industries (2025 Edition), effective 1 February 2026 and replacing the 2022 Edition (issued 26 October 2022). The revised catalogue expands to 1,679 total entries — a net increase of 205 and 303 modified relative to 2022 — split between a nationwide catalogue (619 entries, +100, 131 modified) and a regional catalogue for central/western China, the northeast, and Hainan (1,060 entries, +105, 172 modified). Foreign investors in listed sectors qualify for tariff and tax preferences on imported equipment and other incentives under China's foreign-investment regime. The revision prioritises advanced manufacturing and modern services and steers new entries toward inland and border provinces.

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.

Pakistan's Directorate General of Customs Valuation (Karachi), acting under the Federal Board of Revenue, issued Valuation Ruling No. 2024/2025 on 24 November 2025 (C.No. Misc/54/2021-III/1115), superseding Valuation Ruling No. 1822/2023 and setting fresh minimum customs values (C&F, US$/kg) for latex rubber threads across four count-range bands, differentiated by origin: China at US$2.69-3.53/kg and Malaysia/Thailand at US$2.85-3.66/kg, rising with thread count (30-44, 45-55, 56-63, 64-90 counts). The Directorate rationalized the values downward at stakeholders' request, citing a documented downward trend in prevailing international prices; the ruling functions as an enforceable minimum-value floor under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969, applied when declared invoice values fall below the benchmark.

Bangladesh Bank's Foreign Exchange Policy Department issued FE Circular No. 46 on 12 November 2025, extending the existing 0.30% special cash-assistance (export subsidy) on net FOB value of readymade garment (RMG) and textile exports — previously payable only to manufacturer-exporters producing in their own factories under FE Circular No. 01/2020 — to output manufactured and exported through sub-contracting arrangements, at the same 0.30% rate and same terms. Eligibility is conditioned on the principal firm holding an operating factory of its own and both parties following the 2019 Sub-Contracting Guideline for the RMG industry and the 2024 rules for direct export-oriented garment establishments operating bonded warehouses; pure trading firms with no production capacity are excluded. The change applies to goods shipped from the circular's issuance date onward.

Bangladesh's Council of Advisers, chaired by Chief Adviser Prof. Muhammad Yunus, approved the National Logistics Policy 2025 on 6 November 2025 at its 47th meeting, replacing the annulled 2024 Awami League-era logistics policy. The framework spans 11 chapters and establishes a technology-driven, integrated, sustainable logistics ecosystem aimed at positioning Bangladesh as a leading regional trade and logistics hub by 2050. Two-tier governance architecture: a National Logistics Council (led by the Chief Adviser) for top-level coordination, and a National Logistics Development and Coordination Committee (led by the Chief Adviser's Principal Secretary) for implementation oversight across multimodal hubs, economic zones, international corridors, airports, river ports, sea ports, and land ports.

Brazil's Câmara de Comércio Exterior (Gecex) approved Resolução nº 815, de 3 de novembro de 2025, amending Annex IV of the base tariff-nomenclature resolution (Gecex nº 272/2021) under the Mercosur supply-shortage tariff-reduction mechanism (Mercosur CMC Resolution nº 49/19). The resolution establishes five new duty-free (0%) temporary import tariff-rate quotas — DHA nutritional preparation (80 metric tons/year), rubber gasket/retainer parts (6,250 kg/year), linen yarn (240 metric tons/year), ballistic steel plate (400 metric tons/year) and loudspeakers (5 million units/year) — valid 7 November 2025 to 6 November 2026, while removing an existing duty-free quota for monocalcium phosphate (NCM 2835.26.00), reverting that line to the standard Mercosur Common External Tariff rate.

China's State Council General Office issued Guobanfa [2025] No. 34 ("Notice on Implementing Domestic Product Standards and Related Policies in Government Procurement") on 28 September 2025, effective 1 January 2026. The notice applies a 20% price deduction to domestic-product bids when evaluating government procurement tenders; suppliers whose domestic-content cost share reaches 80% or more of total product cost get the deduction applied to their entire quoted price rather than only the domestic-content portion. Coverage is economy-wide across the government's Goods Classification Directory (Global Trade Alert separately tagged natural/man-made textile fibres and yarn under this measure), with narrow carve-outs for real estate, cultural relics, agricultural/forestry/fishery products, minerals, utilities, and food/tobacco raw materials. The Ministry of Finance published implementing guidance (Caiku [2025] No. 30) shortly after.

The European Commission adopted Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1063 of 12 May 2026, imposing a provisional anti-dumping duty on imports of PET spunbond originating in the People's Republic of China — non-woven needle-punched sheets of polyester filaments, whether or not reinforced by glass fibres, weighing more than 70 g/m2, thickness 0.5-1.8 mm, impregnated with one or more binders, falling under CN codes ex 5603 13 90, 5603 14 20 and ex 5603 14 80. Provisional duties range from 45.6% to 50.0% depending on the exporting producer, entering into force on 14 May 2026 (the day after Official Journal publication) and applying until 13 November 2026, by which date the Commission must decide on definitive measures. The measure follows an investigation initiated on 15 September 2025 (OJ C/2025/5010) pursuant to a complaint lodged on 8 August 2025 by Freudenberg Performance Materials and Johns Manville, alleging that dumped Chinese imports — whose EU market share rose from roughly 0-5% to 15-20% between 2021 and 2024 — caused material injury to Union producers.

Brazil's Câmara de Comércio Exterior (Gecex) approved Resolução nº 788, de 10 de setembro de 2025, amending Annex IV of the base tariff-nomenclature resolution (Gecex nº 272/2021) under the Mercosur supply-shortage tariff-reduction mechanism (Mercosur GMC Resolution nº 49/19). The resolution establishes six new duty-free (0%) temporary import tariff-rate quotas: spray-dry detergent powder (800,000 t/year), vitamin B12 (20 t/year), the cell therapy Tisagenlecleucel (48 units), sulphur black dye (6,000 t/year), elastomultiester bicomponent polyester synthetic filament (1,100 t/year), and high-voltage (345kV-class) electrical cable (1,550 t/year). Quotas run for one year from their individual validity start dates, which range from 15 September 2025 to 22 January 2026 depending on product, granting duty-free entry within volume caps where Mercosur-region supply is judged insufficient.

Brazil's Foreign Trade Executive Committee (GECEX/CAMEX) imposed definitive anti-dumping duties for up to five years on imports of synthetic polyester fibres (NCM 5503.20.90) from China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam, following a petition filed by ABRAFAS (Brazilian Association of Artificial and Synthetic Fibre Producers) in October 2023 and a six-month provisional measure (Resolução Gecex 653/2024) applied from October 2024. Duties are levied as specific tariffs in USD per metric tonne: China residual USD 390.94/t (Zhejiang Hengyi group USD 74.98/t), India USD 194.69/t, Thailand USD 171.21/t, Vietnam USD 297.95/t. Two named exporters — Zhongthai Chemical Fiber Co., Ltd. (Thailand) and Vietnam New Century Polyester Fibre Co., Ltd. (Vietnam) — are explicitly excluded from the measure.

India's DGFT issued Notification No. 24/2025-26 (S.O. 3657(E)) on 11 August 2025, with immediate effect, adding four jute and textile-bast-fibre HS lines — woven jute fabrics (531090), jute twine/cordage/rope (560790, 560890), and jute sacks and bags (630510) — to the list of Bangladesh-origin goods barred from land-port entry into India. Consignments in these categories may now enter only via Nhava Sheva Seaport (Maharashtra); the notification leaves the terms of the prior Notification No. 21/2025-26 (27 June 2025) otherwise unchanged. It is the third in a widening 2025 sequence of DGFT port-routing restrictions on Bangladeshi goods, following Notification No. 07/2025-26 (17 May 2025, targeting RMG and other consumer goods) and Notification No. 21/2025-26.

On 11 August 2025, the President of Russia signed Decree No. 551, "On the Peculiarities of Procurement of Clothing and Equipment for the Needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation." From 1 January 2026, uniforms and equipment supplied to the Russian Armed Forces must be produced by Russian organisations with production facilities located on Russian territory; from 1 January 2027 the localisation requirement extends upstream to the fabrics and knitwear inputs themselves, which must also be Russian-made. The measure bars procurement of foreign-made military uniforms and effectively excludes non-Russian apparel manufacturers and textile suppliers from this segment of state defence procurement.

The Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Armenia, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, approved the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan for Promoting Exports of the Republic of Armenia and its accompanying Action Plan on 31 July 2025. The Strategy targets a 1.7-fold increase in total Armenian exports to USD 16.9 billion by 2030 (USD 10.3 billion services + USD 6.6 billion goods), with an implementation envelope of approximately AMD 98 billion (~USD 250 million). It designates critical minerals (copper-molybdenum concentrates, gold, antimony, emerging rare-earth-element zones), IT and tech services, agri-processing, and green-transition equipment as priority export categories, and operationalises Armenia's ongoing reorientation of export geography away from Russia/EAEU toward EU, US, Gulf, and Asian markets.

India and the UK signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) on 24 July 2025 in Chequers, with Prime Ministers Modi and Starmer presiding. The agreement grants duty-free access on 99% of Indian exports to the UK (textiles, apparel, footwear, auto components, engineering goods and chemicals), and reduces Indian tariffs on UK goods covering ~90% of tariff lines: Scotch whisky duties drop from 150% to 75% on day one and taper to 40% over ten years; high-end UK car tariffs fall from ~110% to 10% under a quota; UK MFN access on a wide industrial-goods envelope. A Double Contribution Convention exempts Indian secondees from UK National Insurance for three years. Bilateral trade currently ~£42 bn / USD 56 bn per year, with the parties targeting doubling by 2030. UK ratification under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 (CRaG) ran from January 2026, with the 21-sitting-day scrutiny period concluding 5 March 2026. Entry into force was delayed from the originally targeted May 2026 date and is now confirmed for July 15, 2026 following a UK Prime Minister announcement at the G7 Évian summit sidelines on June 17, 2026. The confirmed EIF covers 64% of UK exports (£1.9bn) duty-free immediately, with an additional £25.5bn/year in projected additional bilateral trade.

The Australian Border Force published Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. TC 25/25 on 2 July 2025 under sections 269K and 269R of the Customs Act 1901, covering new Tariff Concession Order (TCO) applications and TCOs made for goods not produced domestically (solvents, adhesives, geotextiles, ceramics, glass fibre fabric, HDPE/LLDPE resins, subsea and rail hardware), each carrying a 5% general-tariff duty-free concession, plus revocations and a cheese quota allocation notice. This is a routine, periodic administrative tariff-concession cycle rather than a discrete policy announcement.

Pakistan's National Tariff Commission (NTC) issued a final determination in anti-dumping case ADC-65, imposing a definitive 13.84% average ad valorem duty on imports of Polyester Filament Yarn — Drawn Textured Yarn (PFY-DTY, HS 5402.33) originating from the People's Republic of China. The investigation, initiated on petitions from domestic producers Gatron Industries Limited and Rupali Polyester Limited, found injurious dumping of Chinese PFY-DTY causing material injury to Pakistan's domestic polyester-yarn industry. Provisional duties of a lower rate were first imposed on 15 November 2024 for a four-month period; the higher definitive rate was confirmed and published in the final determination notice of 19 June 2025.

Pakistan's Federal Cabinet approved the National Tariff Policy 2025-30 (NTP 2025-30) in June 2025, with operative tariff reforms incorporated into the Finance Act 2025 effective 1 July 2025. The NTP restructures Pakistan's customs duty (CD) slab architecture from five slabs (0/3/11/16/20%) to four flatter slabs (0/5/10/15%) by FY2029-30, while phasing out Regulatory Duties (RDs) and Additional Customs Duties (ACDs) on 7,000+ tariff lines over four to five years. The policy targets cutting the trade-weighted average tariff from ~10.6% to below 6% and the simple-average tariff from 19% to 9.5% by 2030, underpinned by GTAP projections of 10–14% export growth and 5–6% import growth. Prepared in coordination with IMF technical assistance under the USD 7 billion EFF, the NTP is the statutory anchor for the sequence of Finance-Act SRO-based sectoral tariff revisions covering textiles/MMF, iron-and-steel, and chemicals/intermediates through FY2029-30.

India's DGFT issued Notification No. 07/2025-26 on 17 May 2025, with immediate effect, restricting the entry points through which Bangladesh goods may be imported into India. All ready-made garments (RMG) from Bangladesh are barred from land ports entirely and may enter only via Nhava Sheva and Kolkata seaports; processed food, rubber and plastic goods, and wooden furniture are barred from Land Customs Stations (LCSs) and Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, and at Changrabandha and Fulbari in West Bengal. The notification is widely read as a retaliatory measure responding to Bangladesh's April 2025 NBR land-port yarn-import ban, and is the first bilateral India-Bangladesh trade-restriction instrument filed in the IPTM register.

Bangladesh Bank's Foreign Exchange Policy Department issued Circular No. 14 of 20 April 2025, amending paragraph 26, Chapter 7 of the Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions, 2018 (GFET-2018) to liberalise import-LC discrepancy-handling procedures. Authorised Dealers (AD banks) may now settle discrepant import bills against importer-issued indemnity-and-waiver letters without prior Bangladesh Bank approval, provided discrepancies do not contravene UCP-600 or constitute material changes as defined in GFET-2018 para 31(c). The same treatment is extended to back-to-back import LCs under the export-oriented bonded-warehouse and EPZ regime, directly benefiting Bangladesh's garment-manufacturing sector in settling raw-material import payments against export-LC proceeds.

Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue, acting on a March 2025 Ministry of Commerce directive, issued a notification on 13 April 2025 prohibiting yarn imports through all land-border customs stations, including Benapole, Bhomra, Banglabandha, Burimari, and Sonamasjid. Imports of yarn may continue only through seaports and airports. The stated rationale is systematic under-invoicing of land-port yarn shipments — declared values were found significantly below Chattogram customs-house benchmark prices — which NBR and the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission concluded was severely damaging domestic spinning-mill competitiveness. The restriction is the first BD import-restrictive measure in the IPTM register and triggered India's retaliatory DGFT Notification 07/2025-26 of 17 May 2025 restricting entry of Bangladeshi exports into India.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed Decree No. UP-47 on 14 March 2025, introducing export duties on 86 categories of goods to incentivise domestic processing of strategic raw materials and align Uzbekistan's trade policy with WTO norms. The measure replaces the existing system of export permits for many commodities with ad-valorem duties, phased in across three tranches (June 2025, July 2025, January 2026 and January 2028). Headline rates include 100% on cotton lint, scrap metal, flour and rice; 30% on wheat and meat; and 10-20% on copper, polymers and natural gas — a dual-purpose instrument combining food-security supply controls with industrial-policy downstreaming incentives.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/778 of 14 April 2025, adopted under Regulation (EU) No 654/2014 (the EU enforcement regulation for international trade rights), reinstates the EU's 2018 and 2020 commercial rebalancing measures against the United States and adds new countermeasures in response to the second Trump administration's 10 February 2025 Section 232 proclamations, which restored a universal 25% tariff on steel imports and raised the aluminium tariff to 25% effective 12 March 2025 (filed as 2025-02-11-us-section-232-steel-aluminum-global-tariff-reinstatement). The combined package targets approximately €26 billion of EU imports from the United States — matching the scope of US measures affecting EU exports — and combines the reinstatement of pre-existing duties on a first tranche of products (steel, aluminium, agricultural goods, motorcycles, and other industrial items originally subject to the 2018 and 2020 lists) with new duties on roughly €18 billion of additional US-origin goods spanning poultry, beef, certain seafood, nuts, eggs, dairy, sugar and vegetables on the agricultural side, and steel, aluminium, textiles, leather, appliances, plastics and wood products on the industrial side. Tariff rates layer onto MFN duties at up to 50% for some products, mirroring the structure of the 2018 measures. On the same day the Commission published Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/786, which suspends application of Articles 2 and 3 of 2025/778 for 90 days, until 14 July 2025, to allow space for bilateral negotiations following the US 9 April 2025 announcement of a 90-day pause on its own reciprocal-tariff regime (2025-04-02-us-trump-reciprocal-tariff-regime). The legal scaffolding therefore exists and is in force, but no duties were collected during the suspension window. This is the first standalone EU rebalancing instrument adopted against the United States in the second Trump administration and the first major use of Reg 654/2014 since the 2018-2020 Section 232 episode.

The Government of Karnataka, Department of Industries and Commerce, notified the Karnataka Industrial Policy 2025-30 in the Karnataka Gazette on 11 February 2025, with the policy taking legal effect from 8 February 2025 and valid for five years (or until superseded). It supersedes the prior Karnataka Industrial Policy 2020-25. The umbrella state-level framework targets ₹7.5 lakh crore (~USD 90 bn) in fresh investment and 20 lakh (2 million) new jobs by 2030, positioning Karnataka as a top-Asia destination for high-technology manufacturing — semiconductors, EVs, aerospace, defence, biotech, medical devices, textiles and renewable energy. It introduces zone-based incentive categorisation (Zone 1/2/3 district classification), capital subsidies, stamp-duty exemption, electricity-tax exemption, interest subsidy, ESDM-specific top-up incentives that layer onto central PLI/ECMS/Semicon Mission schemes, and a Cabinet Sub-Committee under the Chief Minister to sanction bespoke "Anchor Investor" and "Mega/Ultra-Mega" customised incentive packages.