BERLIN (Reuters) – Volkswagen will strengthen its relationship to China and can guarantee that the company does not employ any forced labour in the country, the carmaker’s chief executive Herbert Diess said to German broadcaster RTL on Wednesday.
“China will remain an engine of growth,” Diess said. “We will engage even more strongly there.”
The carmaker, which has a joint venture with China’s biggest automaker SAIC Motor, has run a plant since 2013 in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang where Western nations and rights groups say ethnic Uyghurs face torture and detention.
Germany’s Economy Ministry has refused to provide VW with guarantees to cover new investments in China because of the alleged human rights violations.
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee, editing by Rachel More)
