The United States has begun enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) while also working with their allies to ban goods made with forced labor from entering global supply chains, with a focus on those items produced in whole or in part from the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
With the UFLPA, imports from Xinjiang will be denied entry into the U.S., and it is up to the importer of record to prove that forced labor was not used.
Why was the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act created?
The purpose of UFLPA is to “help make global supply chains free from the use of forced labor”, and Washington is encouraging its allies to follow suit, according to a press statement from the State Department.
The newly-promulgated law is built on the foundations of the 1930 Tariff Act and the pertinent sections of the 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. While all these measures target forced labor globally, the U.S. has more recently focused its efforts on Xinjiang because of growing allegations of human rights abuses there. This has resulted in the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
What Products Are Made in Xinjiang
Because Xinjiang produces 20% of the world’s cotton supply, it comes as no surprise to learn that this region is a major supplier of garments of all types. Other items include footwear, toys, and wind and solar powered products and parts.
Its main trading partners consist of, naturally, adjacent countries such as Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, and Russia. But arguably because of long-running allegations of forced labor, Xinjiang’s external trade is on the decline. Latest figures from Descartes Datamyne show that shipments in 2021 totaled US$15.2 billion, down over 15% compared with pre-pandemic 2019.
How Organizations Can Comply
The most efficient way for organizations to comply is by screening their overseas suppliers against the Uyghur Forced Labor Entity List, maintained by Homeland Security. And to be sure that they are in compliance with the wide range of international trade laws, they should also be screening against multiple watch lists from U.S., the European Union, United Kingdom, and other regions and international bodies.
Specific to the UFLPA, Homeland Security has also provided detailed guidance on how to comply, including information that CBP will require for customs clearance purposes.
This is an excerpt of an article originally posted in the Descartes Knowledge Center.
How Descartes Can Help
The best way to screen against the Uyghur Forced Labor Entity List is with robust international trade restricted party screening software solutions, such as those from Descartes Systems Group. These solutions are effective because they can integrate with your ERP or other business systems and will continually screen against the Entity List and automatically alert you of a potential match. This is especially important because a supplier cleared to do business with today might not be tomorrow.
Our powerful sanction screening solutions can help your organization ensure that you are not unwittingly working with sanctioned entities or individuals. These solutions will continually analyze your organization’s supply chain to identify sanctioned parties.
To meet evolving compliance requirements, Descartes adds new entities to its screening lists as government and other official sources update theirs. List content related to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is updated within our application on an ongoing basis, and any additions will similarly be made promptly to help keep our customers in compliance with sanctions and embargoes programs.
Descartes is a provider of an industry-leading suite of denied party screening, 3rd party risk management solutions, as well as trade content for leading business systems, that can be integrated with minimal disruption, sometimes in under an hour.
Descartes Visual Compliance and Descartes MK solutions are flexible and modular, allowing organizations to pick the specific and exact functionality and content they need for their particular compliance needs and scale up later as and when necessary.
