The Gov­ern­ment has banned the ex­port of cop­per for one year, al­low­ing on­ly li­censed man­u­fac­tur­ers to ex­port the met­al un­der strict con­di­tions fol­low­ing a surge in cop­per theft and van­dal­ism of crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture.

The pro­hi­bi­tion took ef­fect on Ju­ly 10 un­der the Pro­hi­bi­tion (Car­riage Coast­wise, Im­por­ta­tion and Ex­por­ta­tion) Or­der, 2026, and will re­main in force un­til Ju­ly 9, 2027.

The Or­der amends the Third Sched­ule of the Pro­hi­bi­tion (Car­riage Coast­wise, Im­por­ta­tion and Ex­por­ta­tion) Or­der by re­mov­ing cop­per from the list of goods re­quir­ing ex­port li­cences and plac­ing it un­der a new cat­e­go­ry pro­hibit­ing its ex­port. As a re­sult, cop­per can no longer be ex­port­ed un­der the pre­vi­ous li­cens­ing regime and may on­ly be ex­port­ed by man­u­fac­tur­ers li­censed by the Min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for trade who sat­is­fy the pre­scribed con­di­tions.