FaisalabadThe Pakistan Textile Exporters Association has felicitated the Pakistan Muslim League-N leadership on massive victory in the general elections and hoped that the new government would bring economic reforms, overcome energy crisis and put textile industry on track by working on a war footing.PTEA Chairman Asghar Ali and Vice Chairman Muhammad Asif congratulated Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif on securing landslide victory in the general elections. They also expressed the hope that the new government would take energy shortage as a challenge enabling the industry to perform to the optimum for achieving growth, new investment, increase in exports and employment. The industrial hopes are on very high notes and country has been in need of serious and talented leadership that can resolve energy crisis and trigger economic revival for a long time, they said. They reposed full confidence in new leadership and said that PML-N had the ability to face challenges and take Pakistan towards economic prosperity. With the people’s mandate, the PML-N should consider this as the best opportunity to prove their love for the people of Pakistan, they added. Due to energy shortage, the industrial production was at the lowest ebb while the exports were declining with every passing day. Being the largest party, PML-N has to evolve a comprehensive strategy to tackle the issues being faced by the trade and industry and national economy, they said.Textile industry has been facing serious issues relating to energy and a change in the government has created fresh hope of survival among the stakeholders. They pointed out that textile industry is currently jolted by prolonged energy outages and constant loadshedding of gas and electricity has hampered the production process creating a drastic fall in industrial output and exporters were not able to honour their export commitments. “Textile industry has been suffered for 695 days from gas load shedding in last five years, they explained. Strident increase in number of days for non availability of gas has limited the capacity utilization, viability and growth of textile sector. More over textile exporters are in a state of financial crunch due to nonpayment of refunds worth billions of rupees in sales tax, custom rebate and excise duty regimes,” they said. “Being mainstay of the country’s economy, textile industry deserves priority of the government with respect to uninterrupted energy supply, both electricity and gas and payment of refunds. Textile mills’ owners are hopeful that the economic managers of the new government would keep the industry operational and no compromises would be made in this regard. The industry hopes that prudence as well as solutions imperative for the proper functioning of industry for the sake of national output would be made.”The PTEA leaders said that the PML-N’s victory would be beneficial for the business community and the economy. Focus on development and infrastructure should be the prime responsibility of the new government and uninterrupted energy to industry needs to be ensured, they added. Textile exporters are optimistic that the energy crisis will be resolved under the new government, they concluded.