Frankfurt (Reuters) – BASF is drawing conclusions from human rights allegations against the chemical company’s Chinese joint venture.
BASF will sell shares in its two joint ventures Markor Chemical and Markor Meiou Chemical in Korla, in the center of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the company said on Friday. The process was already initiated in the fourth quarter of 2023, but should now be accelerated. Recently published reports about the joint venture partner contained serious allegations “that indicate activities that are inconsistent with BASF’s values.”
The “Spiegel” reported a week ago that joint research by the magazine and ZDF had shown that the partner Markor was significantly more involved in the system of oppression against the Muslim Uyghur minority in northwest China than was previously known. Employees were directly involved in a campaign of control and repression by party cadres in Xinjiang. At the time, BASF stated that it was taking the information “very seriously” and that the company had previously had no knowledge of these activities.
The Ludwigshafen-based company now emphasized that, in connection with the most recent reports, there was no evidence that employees of the two joint ventures in Korla were involved in human rights violations. The reports only refer to BASF’s joint venture partner, in which the group is not involved.
BASF’s presence in the People’s Republic otherwise remains unchanged, and the company is “fully sticking to” its business activities and planned investments in China. BASF is currently building a new Verbund site in the Chinese province of Guangdong for up to ten billion dollars. In Korla, the company produced butanediol, which is used as a raw material for polyesters, polyamides and polyurethanes.
(Report by Patricia Weiß. Edited by Olaf Brenner. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and the economy) or [email protected] (for companies and markets).)
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