SHANGHAI / HONG KONG: According to an environmental organization, three publicly traded Chinese drugmakers have used endangered animal parts as ingredients in their products. These companies are investors in major international banks like UBS and HSBC.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency urged international buyers in the three companies, Beijing Tong Ren Tang party, Tianjin Pharmaceutical class and Jilin Aodong Pharmaceutical Group, to sell their stake in a statement released on Monday( Oct 23 ).
The three businesses are on a list of 72 businesses that, according to the environmental non-profit organization( NGO ), used the body parts of pangolins and threatened leopards as ingredients in at least 88 traditional Chinese medicine ( TCM ) products.
The group claimed that because pharmaceutical companies are publicly traded and have items with tiger or pangolin components on their websites, they are the focus of their attention.
TCM products are renowned for using a wide range of animal parts as materials, and their producers frequently list these elements on their item packaging and formally tout their effectiveness.
According to Avinash Basker, a legal and policy expert for the NGO,” it’s especially disheartening to see so many big banks and financial institutions properly endorsing this damaging abuse.”
” They need to sell off TCM producers who use threatened species as soon as possible.”
Some emails and phone calls from Reuters requesting post were not returned by the Beijing Tong Ren Tang and Tianjin Pharmaceutical party. For reply, Jilin Aodong Pharmaceutical Group could not be reached.
UBS, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings, Citigroup, and BlackRock are among the 62 economic organizations that, according to the NGO, have made unknown investments in at least one of the three companies.
According to the agency, some investors, including Wells Fargo & amp, Co., claimed to have either sold their shares in the TCM firms or the funds they had invested in them.
While UBS claimed that its shareholdings were held on behalf of clients, HSBC Global Asset Management Canada and Royal Bank of Canada informed the company that their assets in the businesses were restricted to quiet or monitor money.
According to the economic class, no answers were given to its questions by Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings, Citigroup, or BlackRock.
When Reuters pressed Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and BlackRock for reply, they all declined.
The dissident group urged the Chinese government to forbid all commercial use of endangered animal elements in local areas.
A Reuters request for comment was never answered by the National Medical Products Administration of China.
The majority of wild animals are not allowed to be traded for food as part of China’s amended Wildlife Protection regulation, which went into effect in May. However, permissions for breeding and exercise can still be granted under certain conditions.