Bangladesh has announced a major policy package to accelerate solar development, including a 0% tax rate for the solar sector until 2035 and a 5% tax rebate on consumers’ solar electricity bill payments. The government will also reduce import duty, regulatory duty, supplementary duty and advance tax to 0% on key solar components, including inverters, lithium cells, lithium-ion batteries, PV modules, mounting structures, BESS, battery management systems, solar DC cables and battery thermal management systems. The policy aims to attract investment and support Bangladesh’s target of meeting 20% of electricity demand from renewables by 2030 and 30%-50% from clean energy by 2050. SMM believes lower taxes and equipment import costs will support utility-scale and distributed solar development, while improving the attractiveness of local renewable energy equipment manufacturing.

Bangladesh has announced a major policy package to accelerate solar development, including a 0% tax rate for the solar sector until 2035 and a 5% tax rebate on payments made against consumers’ solar electricity bills. The government will also reduce import duty, regulatory duty, supplementary duty and advance tax to 0% on key solar components, including inverters, lithium cells, batteries, PV modules, mounting structures, BESS, battery management systems, solar DC cables and thermal management systems. The policy aims to attract investment and support Bangladesh’s target of meeting 20% of electricity demand from renewables by 2030 and 30%-50% from clean energy by 2050.

During SNEC 2026, Jinko Solar held 10 consecutive strategic partnership signing ceremonies, reaching Tiger Neo 3.0 supply agreements with C&D Emerging Energy, Jiangsu Yude New Energy, Xcel Renewable Energy Corp. of the Philippines, UCC Group of Bangladesh, and six core partners in Pakistan. The partnerships span multiple key markets, with application scenarios covering utility-scale ground-mounted plants, commercial and industrial distributed projects, and other diverse application areas, fully promoting the large-scale deployment and widespread application of Tiger Neo 3.0 high-efficiency modules in the global market.

[SMM Steel] Japan exported 2.35 million mt of ferrous scrap in January-April 2026, down 9.9% year on year, while April exports fell 10.1% YoY to 667,678 mt. Vietnam remained the largest importer of Japanese scrap during the period, importing 1.02 million mt, down 10.1% YoY. Bangladesh imported 516,219 mt, up 22.3%, while South Korea imported 350,019 mt, down 17.9% YoY. Meanwhile, Japanese scrap exports to Thailand more than doubled to 173,869 mt during the four-month period.

Data from the online customs statistics query platform showed that China's copper cathode imports in April 2026 totaled 315,798.48 mt, up 13.04% MoM and up 5.20% YoY. China imported 147,428.95 mt of copper cathode from the DRC in April, up 48.72% MoM and up 29.56% YoY. China imported 24,309.19 mt of copper cathode from Russia in April, down 51.38% MoM and down 4.86% YoY. Export side, China's copper cathode exports in April 2026 totaled 25,605.82 mt, down 56.01% MoM and down 67.05% YoY. China exported 8,545 mt of copper cathode to Thailand in April, down 10.06% MoM and down 33.74% YoY. Below is a breakdown of export data compiled from the General Administration of Customs website: Destination April 2026 (mt) MoM YoY Thailand 8545.00 -10.06% -33.74% Taiwan, China 6495.34 -68.73% 4.84% Vietnam 4066.94 -72.57% -60.37% Malaysia 3098.77 -29.13% 674.63% Indonesia 1998.63 42.45% 566.47% South Korea 551.42 -88.92% -93.31% Bangladesh 499.78 -1.00% - Pakistan 199.94 -63.55% -19.91% Singapore 149.97 - -92.11% UK 0.02 63.64% 260.00% Total 25605.82 -56.01% -67.05% Data source: General Administration of Customs (Wenhua Comprehensive)

According to the latest customs data, China imported 2,574 mt of die-cast zinc alloy in April 2026, down 20.79% month-on-month. From January to April 2026, China's cumulative imports of die-cast zinc alloy reached 10,636 mt, down 27.96% year-on-year.