SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s Jinjiang Group is in the spotlight after Brazilian labor authorities said workers at a factory it is building for electric vehicle maker BYD were victims of human trafficking working in “slavery-like conditions”.
Jinjiang has rejected the claim about workers in slavery-like conditions and did not respond to a request for comment on the human trafficking allegation. China’s Foreign Ministry said it concerns communications with Brazil and that China requires Chinese companies to operate in accordance with the law.
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THE COMPANY
Privately held Jinjiang – the name means ‘gold craftsman’ – was founded in 2002 and is qualified to provide real estate construction services. The head office is located in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city where BYD is also located.
Chairman Ma Jianbin’s alma mater, the Sichuan College of Architectural Technology, posted on social media in 2021 that Jinjiang had 1,500 employees and annual revenue of 3 billion yuan ($400 million).
In addition to BYD, major customers also include Chinese property developers such as Vanke, Longfor and Country Garden, the post said.
Jinjiang is controlled by Ma Jianwei, whose personal information is not available, according to data in the Chinese company database Tianyancha.
JINJIANG’S WORK FOR BYD
In addition to the factory in Brazil, Jinjiang is working to build BYD factories across China in cities such as Changzhou, Yangzhou and Hefei, according to data on Tianyancha and job postings on Chinese websites and social media.
Jinjiang was looking for workers to build BYD factories in Xian, Shaanxi and Zhengzhou, job postings from recruiters on the WeChat messaging app showed last month.
According to local government posts, the company helped BYD build its Skyrail elevated monorail system in China.
Reuters was unable to determine whether Jinjiang worked on BYD projects in Hungary, Mexico, Thailand and Uzbekistan, but recruitment postings for the company show it is hiring for a variety of positions in Hungary, including forklift driver and logistics specialist.
Jinjiang is recruiting hydraulic and steel structure engineers in Turkey, as well as Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese and Hungarian translators, according to reports that did not mention BYD.
WORK SAFETY LAW
According to Tianyancha, from 2018 to 2022, Jinjiang was ordered by Chinese courts to compensate workers in five workplace accident and injury disputes.
According to the database, the company was fined in three cases in 2023 and 2024 for violating worker safety regulations.
A criminal file also showed that in May 2022, a worker at a BYDs construction site in Hefei died in a falling accident. Jinjiang, the project’s main contractor, was fined 310,000 yuan by local authorities along with two subcontractors in 2023 for failing to implement safety measures.
JINJIANG, BYD RESPONSES TO BRAZIL CLAIMS
Jinjiang said on his Weibo account that the depiction of the workers as “enslaved” was inaccurate and there were translation misunderstandings.
It posted a video of a group of Chinese workers, one of whom read on camera a letter that Jinjiang said the workers had jointly signed, saying the claim that they had been rescued undermined their dignity.
The unidentified worker said they were shocked by the possibility that they could be sent home, that they wanted to keep their jobs and continue working in Brazil.
BYD initially said it had severed ties with Jinjiang, but Jinjiang’s Chinese statement was later reposted online by a BYD executive who accused “foreign forces” and some Chinese media of “deliberately smearing Chinese brands and the country and relationship between China and Brazil’. .
Brazil’s labor prosecutor said BYD and Jinjiang have agreed to help the 163 workers and house them in hotels until an agreement is reached to terminate their contracts.
($1 = 7.2992 Chinese Yuan Renminbi)
(Reporting by Shanghai and Beijing Newsrooms; Editing by William Mallard)
