In August 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) added five high-priority sectors for enforcement under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). Sectors are designated as being high-priority for enforcement when the U.S. government determines there is sufficient information indicating that supply chains and suppliers in those sectors have a higher risk of forced labor, are a particular government target for investment in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), or that region is a major producer of that good.
The five new high-priority sectors are:
- Caustic soda: China is the world’s largest producer of caustic soda and, among Chinese regions, the XUAR was the fourth leading producer of caustic soda in 2022.
- Copper: The copper sector in the XUAR is the focus of multiple initiatives advanced by the Chinese and XUAR governments, and there is credible evidence that multiple entities in the copper sector have a high risk of utilizing or facilitating forced labor.
- Jujubes (also known as red dates): China is the world’s top producer and exporter of jujubes, producing 40 percent of the world’s output. Overall, 20 percent of the world’s red dates come from the XUAR.
- Lithium: China’s lithium reserves have increased from 6 percent to 16.5 percent of the global total, and the XUAR is named among the locations of newly discovered deposits.
- Steel: The XUAR government and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have identified steel as a key industry and have targeted the Region’s steel sector for investment and steel product development.
These new sectors join the original seven sectors identified upon enactment of the UFLPA: aluminum, apparel, cotton and cotton products, polyvinyl chloride, seafood, silica-based products (including polysilicon), and tomatoes and downstream products.
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What new high-priority sectors mean for commercial enterprises
Designating a sector as high priority is a signal from the U.S. government to commercial organizations to prioritize scrutiny of supply chains that may involve products in these sectors. Additionally, the government intends to prioritize review of potential entities within these sectors for inclusion in the UFLPA Entity List. Federal agencies will also examine entities in these sectors for possible enforcement actions under their relevant authorities.
How Sayari helps identify forced labor risk in new sectors
Organizations must now apply increased scrutiny to these new sectors to mitigate risk from forced labor input. To do so, teams need to look beyond tier 1 to achieve multi-tier supply chain visibility.
Sayari Map uses corporate, trade, and risk data to paint a full picture of product-specific supply chains from the outside in. Sayari’s corporate database contains profiles on nearly 800 million companies and more than 763 million key individuals across 250+ jurisdictions worldwide.
By matching their supplier lists against Sayari’s comprehensive database, organizations can instantly generate highly relevant, highly filterable supply chain maps tracking 80+ forced labor risk indicators n-tiers deep. These targeted insights are made possible, in part, by a proprietary technology called product blueprints. A product blueprint is a generic bill of materials, built using a large language model, that lists the components likely used in the manufacturing of a specific product. Leveraging product blueprints allows organizations to easily assess suppliers manufacturing products in these high-priority sectors well before DHS adds an entity to the UFLPA Entity List.
For additional support on managing forced labor risk in your supply chain, review our compilation of helpful resources.
