The growing controversy in the automaker's biggest overseas market has put a spotlight on immigrant worker conditions in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. A deal with labor prosecutors involving BYD and the Jinjiang Group could be inked as soon as Jan.

Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking.

Local authorities said the contractor employed by BYD was forcing 163 Chinese workers to endure slave-like conditions at the construction site