Explained | What is China's Jinjiang, the BYD contractor under fire in Brazil?

Shanghai: China's Jinjiang Group is in the spotlight after Brazil's labour 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 not responded to a request for comment on the trafficking allegation. China's foreign ministry said it is communication with Brazil and that China requires Chinese companies to operate in compliance with the law.

Here is more about Jinjiang Group:

The Company

Privately held Jinjiang - the name means "gold craftsman" - was founded in 2002 and is qualified to provide property construction services. It is headquartered in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city that is also home to BYD.

Chairman Ma Jianbin's alma mater, the Sichuan College of Architectural Technology, posted on social media in 2021 that Jinjiang had a staff of 1,500 and annual revenue of 3 billion yuan ($400 million).

Besides BYD, major clients 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 records on Chinese companies database Tianyancha.

Jinjang's work for BYD

Besides the Brazil factory, Jinjiang works on BYD factory construction across China in cities such as Changzhou, Yangzhou and Hefei, according to records on Tianyancha and job posts on Chinese websites and social media.

Jinjiang was seeking workers for the construction of BYD's plants in Xian, Shaanxi and Zhengzhou, according to job posts by recruiters on the WeChat messaging app last month.

The company helped BYD build its Skyrail elevated monorail system in China, according to local government posts.

Reuters could not establish whether Jinjiang was working on BYD projects in Hungary, Mexico, Thailand and Uzbekistan, but recruitment posts for the firm show that it is hiring various 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, it said in posts that do not mention BYD.

Work safety record

From 2018 to 2022, Jinjiang was ordered by Chinese courts to compensate workers in five disputes involving work accidents and injuries, according to Tianyancha.

It was fined in three cases in 2023 and 2024 for violating worker safety regulations, according to the database.

A penalty record also showed that in May 2022, a worker at a construction site of BYD's in Hefei was killed in a falling accident. Jinjiang, the chief contractor of the project, was fined 310,000 yuan alongside two sub-contractors by the local authorities in 2023 for failing to implement safety measures.

Jinjiang, BYD responses to Brazil claims

Jinjiang said on its Weibo account that the portrayal of the workers as "enslaved" was inaccurate and that there were translation misunderstandings.

It posted a video of a group of Chinese workers, one reading to the camera a letter that Jinjiang said the workers had jointly signed, saying the claim that they had been rescued insulted 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 cut 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 undermining the relationship between China and Brazil".

Brazil's Labor Prosecutor's Office said BYD and Jinjiang have agreed to assist and house the 163 workers in hotels until a deal to end their contracts is reached.