ISLAMABAD (APP) - Business community on Friday welcomed the governments 10-year energy roadmap, unveiled by the Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani while inaugurating 225-MW Orient power plant at Balloki recently. In a meeting at ICCI, they termed it a positive initiative which has given a ray of hope for a better energy future. They said it envisages doubling the countrys power generation capacity with a minimum addition of 20,000 MW by the year 2020. The rising energy crisis has badly affected almost all sectors of the economy. Therefore, top most priority should be given to improving this area and to save the economy from further damage. Chairing the meeting, Zahid Maqbool, President, ICCI said that the unveiled energy roadmap is an ambitious plan. He urged the government to ensure high-level of implementation capacity and the required funding to turn it into a reality. He said on assuming power, the present government had shown great resolve to take urgent measures to overcome energy crisis. However, it has so far added only 1,708-MW to the national grid, which is far short of the desired level. Along with producing more power, he urged for taking more measures to secure maximum efficiency in generation, transmission and distribution systems as almost 35-40 percent power is lost on account of inefficiency and line losses. He asked for diverting street lights, water heating and irrigation pumps to solar energy and introduce energy savers to save more energy for industrial and manufacturing sectors. Zahid Maqbool said that the energy roadmap should focus on exploiting cheap energy sources like hydro, coal, wind, solar and biomass. He said that countrys focus on thermal power has not only raised the per-unit cost of production, it has also eroded the competitiveness of our exports, forcing some industrialists to relocate to other countries in search of cheap labor and energy cost. He was of the view that the affordable energy supply in the country will not only pull back the migrant industrialists, it will attract more investment in the country.