ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Industries and Production (MOIP) has decided to accord Brownfield status to Dewan Farooq Motors Limited, Dewan Dachan Motors Limited on special intercession of Minister for Industries and Production, Ghulam Murtaza Khan Jatoi.
This decision was also taken by Auto Industry Development Committee (AIDC), reported Business Recorder.
It was reported that Engineering Development Board (EDB) had changed minutes of AIDC to provide special treatment to one of the automakers.
The minutes of the AIDC meeting shared by EDB had a fair share of controversy, as respect to agenda four, the request for Brownfield Investment under Automotive Development Policy 2016-21 by Dewan Farooq Motors had been cleared by the house without any change in policy.
It was revealed the Federal Board of Revenue representative also favoured no change in policy. But in an interesting twist, the minutes were perverse to the recorded decision
Ironically, the decision mentioned “keeping in view the spirit of the existing policy for revival of closed down units, the AIDC unanimously supported the case of Dewan Farooq Motors for suitable amendments in the ADP 2016-21 for availing benefits under the Brownfield category.”
As per sources, the reason for this decision was attributable to Al-Haj FAW’s demand which wasn’t accommodatable in this currency policy framework.
AIDC neither supported or could change the policy, as its strongly believed in continuity and consistency than supporting temporary loss or benefits for some players in the short run.
Because of this policy announcement, the existing OEMs protested that it didn’t provide any benefit to them if they introduced new variants.
