KARACHI: The Ministry of Industries and Production (MoIP) has awarded brownfield investment status to Ghandhara Nissan Ltd (GNL) under the Auto Development Policy 2016-21 for revival of an existing industry or facility for the manufacturing of Datsun cars.

Market sources said the company has invested Rs4 billion to roll out three different models of Datsun 1,000cc-1,500cc.

The company would start production of vehicles from middle of next year with initial localisation level of 20 per cent, sources added.

The brownfield project would create over 2,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Sources said a team of Nissan Motor Japan has already arrived in Pakistan and is now visiting the local facilities in Lahore and Karachi to check the quality of parts being produced by Pakistani vendors.

In the past, GNL had introduced one model of locally-assembled Nissan Sunny car but the production could not achieve localisation targets and was discontinued due to strict quality control of Nissan Global Technical Division.

GNL had assembled 599 Sunny in 1996-97 but production continued to suffer turbulence and came to a halt in 2004-05.

This is the second investment in the brownfield segment after Dewan Farooqui Motors.

In greenfield, the country has seen five investments — United Motors, Dewan Mushtaq, Kia by Lucky Group, Hyundai by Nishat Group and Regal Automobile Industries Limited (RAIL).

The government claimed recently that the ADP 2016-21 has attracted significant investments of over $800 million.

The arrival of new investors in brownfield and greenfield segments would shake up the monopoly of existing Japanese car assemblers. Car buyers have been facing long delays of four to six months in getting deliveries of vehicles while impatient buyers pay heavy premiums to the dealers to lift cars instantly.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2018