B.V. Naidu, director of Software Technology Parks of India, a government body promoting software exports, said for the first six months ending September Bangalore exported software worth 72 billion rupees (1.6 billion dollars).

In the last fiscal year, Bangalore, which houses more than 1,180 domestic and global IT companies, earned 130 billion rupees as revenues from software exports.

"This fiscal year we are expecting a growth of between 30 percent and 35 percent," Naidu said. "There is growth happening in all sectors such as software and business process outsourcing.

"The outsourcing business is expected to contribute 15 percent to overall revenues this year compared to about seven percent last year," he said.

The National Association of Software and Service Companies, India's top software body, has set a total software export target of 12 billion dollars in the current fiscal year to March 2004.

Bangalore, home to global information technology companies such as IBM, Intel, Dell, Texas Corporation, Cisco and Sun Microsystems, employs 110,000 software professionals, Naidu said.

He said outsourcing firms, which employed about 55,000 people, were recruiting an average of 3,000 employees every month in Bangalore.

A year ago foreign technology firms invested 6.5 billion rupees in Bangalore, while 66 IT firms set up base in the "Silicon Valley of India" during the last six months.

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