It seems there has been a lot going on with UFLPA … Kharon, a financial and commercial risk technology platform, recently reported:
“Several major Chinese pharmaceutical companies have obtained drug ingredients from biotech firms that have participated in government-sponsored labor transfers or are based in Xinjiang, a region of China subject to stringent U.S. import bans due to forced labor concerns. These pharmaceutical firms, including subsidiaries of large Chinese enterprises such as Sinopharm, have previously received hundreds of millions of dollars of Xinjiang-origin chemical and pharmaceutical products from biotech firms like Yili Chuanning Biotechnology.”
This may come as a surprise to some who think that UFLPA enforcement has been limited to the high priority sectors (tomatoes, cotton, and polysilicon-based products). Here is an up to date snapshot of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enforcement statistics, including sectors/types of goods:
Obviously, enforcement of the law continues to be robust and extends to many more products and sectors than only those few considered high priority. Companies must stay on top of their suppliers to identify Chinese sources, and be prepared to defend against the rebuttable presumption that applies to goods made in, or shipped through, China are made with forced labor and therefore are prohibited from entry into the United States. In case you missed last week’s blog on the Senate Finance Committee investigation into automakers and UFLPA, you might want to read it for insight into due diligence tools in China.
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