DMK denies Jaya's claim on Motorola

Chennai, Jun 9 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today refuted AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalithaa's claim that it was her previous Government that signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Foxconn, an electronics major, for setting up a Motorola manufacturing plant in the city.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the Foxconn project referred by her and the Motorola project, for which an MoU was signed in his presence on Wednesday last, were totally different ones.

While Foxconn was a Taiwan-based company, Motorola was a US-based one. The ownership, management and functioning of both the companies were completely independent of each other and they had come to Tamil Nadu separately. Therefore, it was totally incorrect to say that the Motorala project was part of the Foxconn project, he said.

Mr Karunanidhi said his Government raised no objection to the MoU for Foxconn, signed by the earlier AIADMK Government on March three, 2006.

He said Foxconn wanted to establish its project in the format of Special Economic Zone (SEZ). According to the Centre's SEZ Rules 2006, the minimum land requirement for product-specific SEZ was 250 acres. However, Foxconn required only 100 acres, which was insufficient to qualify for SEZ.

In order to enable Foxconn to get the SEZ status, the likely land requirement of several other electronic projects, including Motorola, was taken into account to reach the minimum required level of 250 acres for forming a SEZ, he explained.

The Chief Minister said the approval for SEZ was pending before the Centre and the State Government was pursuing the matter to get the approval within a week's time.

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