Washington, Feb 17: The International Finance Corporation (IFC) had been providing millions of dollars in loans to companies that rely on forced labour from Uyghur and other ethnic minority groups in China, according to a latest report. The report titled, ‘Financing and Genocide: Development Finance and the Crisis in the Uyghur Region’ was prepared by a team led by the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.
It was published by the Atlantic Council, a US-based think tank, on Tuesday. The report has revealed evidence that in recent years the IFC, one of the world’s leading development banks operating under the World Bank Group, has given loans to four Chinese companies. These four companies rely on forced labour and land expropriation in the region, along with environmental damage and the destruction of indigenous cultural heritage sites, CNN reported. The companies — Chenguang Biotech Group, Camel Group, Century Sunshine and Jointown Pharmaceutical Group — had received loans and equity investments from the IFC valued at $439 million, including loans sourced from institutional investors via the IFC, that figure rises to around $485 million.
