Norway’s wealth fund is the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund and operates under ethical guidelines set by parliament. According to the fund’s ethics watchdog, the $1.3 trillion wealth fund is to examine whether companies it has invested in might be using the labor of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims linked to China’s internment camps in Xinjiang.
In a statement to Reuters, China’s foreign ministry denies the existence of “so-called ‘detention camps” in Xinjiang but according to Johan H. Andresen, chair of the fund’s Council on Ethics, the fund had begun identifying companies that it said used workers that had been held in internment camps in Xinjiang.
To Reuters Johan H. Andresen said that the fund is concerned that some of their companies in the fund may make use of this labor. “This is possibly a widespread practice,” he said and added that if they were to make any recommendations, it would be in the first half of this year.
Recommendations are sent to the board of the central bank, which ultimately makes decisions.
