The aluminium associations of the United States, Europe, Canada, and Japan welcome the release by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of The OECD MAGIC database of industrial subsidies 2026.
The OECD release makes publicly available an extensive database of subsidy estimates across 15 industrial sectors over the 20-year period 2005-2024. These data show that industrial subsidies globally have been increasing in recent years, and in 2024 reached their highest level since the peak during the 2008-09 global economic crisis.
While subsidies are pervasive across countries and sectors, firms based in China are much larger recipients than firms located elsewhere, while the most heavily subsidised sectors are solar panels, semiconductors, and aluminium.
These new data reinforce earlier OECD analysis which outlined how China’s state enterprises are not just recipients of support, but are also major providers, particularly in the form of below-market finance by state banks. State enterprises are also more likely to benefit from preferential competition rules, public procurement practices, and forced technology transfers.
Understanding this entire ecosystem – in which state support flows in many forms and in multiple directions across entire supply chains, and fundamentally reshapes markets – is essential for governments looking to ensure fair competition globally. Individual country trade defence measures, while welcome, are inadequate to address the scale, scope, and duration of China’s ecosystem of industrial support.