2024-02-15 05:12:17
German car giant Volkswagen (VW) announced on February 14 that it is in talks with its Chinese joint venture partner to review its operations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Photographed in New York in April last year (2024 Reuters/Andrew Kelly)
BERLIN (Reuters) – German car giant Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), opens new tab said on Wednesday that it is in talks with its Chinese joint venture partner to review its operations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Announced. This was in response to a report in the German economic newspaper Handelsblatt that alleged that VW’s joint venture was involved in forced labor. The paper said an independent source found evidence of forced labor in the construction of a test track in Xinjiang by a subsidiary of a joint venture between Volkswagen and SAIC (600104.SS), opens new tab. Discovered by researcher Adrian Zenz.
A Volkswagen spokesperson said the company is in discussions with the joint venture “regarding the future direction of our business activities in Xinjiang” and is “intensively considering different scenarios.”
In an email to Reuters, Zenz said photos showing Uighur people being hired to build test driving tracks under a “poverty alleviation” program that has been implicated in forced labor by U.N. experts. He explained that he found the document on the Internet.
In a written statement to Reuters, Volkswagen said it had no prior knowledge of possible human rights violations in the course’s construction.
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