Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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14. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the preparations that are being made in his Department for forthcoming European Union regulations on forced labour and corporate due diligence; the volume of exports from China which it is anticipated that may be impacted by these directives and in particular products from Xinjiang; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47066/22]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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A proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence was published by the European Commission in February 2022. The proposal focuses on establishing a system within company law and corporate governance to address adverse human rights and environmental impacts arising from companies' own operations, their subsidiaries' operations and their value chains. Companies are required to engage with business partners in their value chains to remedy such impacts. While the proposal includes sanctions in case of non-compliance with the due diligence obligations, it does not require Member States or companies to prohibit the placing and making available of any product on the market.

Discussions on this proposal are ongoing at Council working party level and it is not anticipated that a directive will be finalised until well into 2023.

A complementary proposal for a Regulation on prohibiting products made with forced labour on the Union market was published by the Commission on 14 September and negotiations at Council working party level have not yet commenced. The aim of this new proposal is to ensure sure that products found to be produced with forced labour are banned from the EU. Given its recent publication, consideration by my department of this proposal in advance of negotiations commencing at Council working party is at an early stage.

China is Ireland's 4th largest goods import partner with such imports from China in 2021 valued at €8,452 million. It is not possible to provide a breakdown by region.