(Bloomberg) -- China’s top legislative body will discuss joining two international forced-labor treaties at a meeting next week, amid global concerns over the country’s treatment of the Uyghur ethnic minority.

Ratification of the Forced Labor Convention and Abolition of Forced Labor Convention is listed on the agenda when the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress meets April 18-20, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday. The conventions were respectively adopted in 1930 and 1957 by members of the International Labor Organization.

China’s alleged treatment of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang has become a contentious stumbling block for ties with the West in recent years. A bilateral investment agreement between China and the European Union was put on hold last year after the sides clashed over sanctions imposed due to alleged human-rights abuses.

In December, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to ban imports of goods from China’s Xinjiang region unless companies can prove they weren’t made with forced labor. Last week, a U.S.-based consultancy said major automakers such as BMW AG and General Motors Co. have links through their suppliers to controversial labor programs.

China has categorically dismissed forced-labor allegations regarding Xinjiang, repeatedly calling it “the biggest lie of the century.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Monday at a regular press briefing that “those U.S. researchers’ conclusions are nothing but ill-intentioned smears against China.”

Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told Bloomberg News on Monday that ratification “means nothing” to the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment between China and the EU. “The only meaningful thing that would sway the EU parliament to ratify the CAI would be a real policy change by China in Xinjiang,” he said.

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