After scandal: New timetable for BYD plant in Brazil

The new factory of Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD in Brazil will be “fully operational” by December 2026. This was stated by the Minister of Labor of the state of Bahia, Augusto Vasconcelos, at the beginning of the week. By then, the factory should start producing cars from semifinished kits, he added. Investigations into “slavery-like working conditions” for more than a hundred Chinese contract workers on the construction site of the future BYD plant had recently delayed the project.

“A new schedule will be set so that the factory will be fully operational by December 2026 and is expected to create 10,000 jobs,” Vasconcelos said in a video published on social media, as reported by the Reuters news agency.

Scandal over working conditions

Brazil is BYD's largest market outside China. Last year, the car manufacturer reported growth of around 328 percent compared to 2023, with 76,713 vehicles sold in Brazil. The plans for the BYD plant in Brazil, the company's first outside Asia to build only all-electric cars, were announced at the beginning of 2024. At the time, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke of an investment of around 564 million euros. BYD will transform a Ford factory in the city of Camaçari in the state of Bahia in the north-east of the country, which was closed at the beginning of 2021, into a production complex with a capacity of 150,000 electric cars per year.

The project hit the headlines at the end of December due to allegations of labor violations and even suspicions of human trafficking. Video footage taken on site showed how the workers were housed: on bunk beds without mattresses and with miserable cooking areas. The employment contracts were found to contain clauses that violate labor laws in both Brazil and China. The Brazilian authorities spoke of “slave-like conditions” for 163 Chinese workers. The subcontractor Jinjiang, through which the workers were employed, contradicted this claim. The conditions were uncovered during an inspection on BYD's premises. Brazil then suspended the granting of temporary work visas to the company and temporarily halted construction of the plant.

New hires this year

According to the original plan, the plant was to start producing cars this year. According to the new schedule announced by Vasconcelos, vehicles will now initially be assembled from imported kits from China. BYD will hire around 1,000 workers in Brazil this year for this purpose, Julio Bonfim, president of the Camaçari metalworkers' union, told Reuters. This is only a fraction of the 10,000 jobs still promised. In addition, the plant will create 10,000 more indirect jobs, BYD estimates.

Despite the delay, the new schedule is good news, Bonfim said. He expects hiring to increase next year when BYD begins building vehicles entirely in Brazil.

(akn)