The German chemical giant Basf said on Tuesday that he had given in the actions of his joint ventures in the Xinjiang region in China, a decision greeted by the Uighur activists concerned by the use of forced labor there.
Since the end of 2023, BASF has announced its intention to sell its actions in the manufacture of chemicals of Basf Markor and Markor Meiou Chemical in the Korla region of Xinjiang. The German media had alleged that his local partner was involved in human rights violations in the Xinjiang.
Basf said in a statement on Tuesday that the buyer was Verde Chemical Singapore Pte. Ltd. Who is the majority controlled by Verde Ventures SGP, a company registered in Singapore. The two parties agreed not to disclose the financial details of the transaction ended on Monday, he said.
Basf previously said that his audits had found no evidence of human rights violations in both joint ventures, but that the published reports contained “serious allegations which indicate activities incompatible with the values of BASF”.
The German newspaper Handelsblatt published a report in November 2023 alleging that the shareholder of Basf-Markor, the Zhongtai group in the Xinjiang and its subsidiary Zhongtai Chemical, used the Uighur slave work. The American government, which blocked imports from the Xinjiang, unless they were not made with forced work, included Zhongtai Group and Zhongtai Chemical on a list of sanctions.
On Tuesday, Rushan Abbas, president of the Executive Committee for the Uighur World Congress, a defense group for defenders of the global Uighur diaspora, described the withdrawal of BASF as “an important step towards the responsibility of companies in the face of modern slavery”.
“We urge other multinational companies to follow suit,” she said.
The American government has determined that the persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang is equivalent to a genocide. A law adopted in 2021 makes it illegal to import products used by workers’ workers in the United States.
Last November, the other large German investor in Xinjiang, the automaker Volkswagen, sold its operations there. Activists and experts had accused VW of having authorized the use of the workforce of the Uighur slaves in its spouse factory with the Chinese company Saic Motor Corp. in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang.
Edited by Mat Pennington