Mumbai, Feb. 2: The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) has projected a 35 per cent growth for software and services exports this fiscal that will rake in revenues worth $17.3 billion.

Nasscom has put the earnings of the entire domestic IT industry, including hardware, at $28.2 billion. The industry had registered a growth of 34 per cent in the previous fiscal, clocking revenues of $21.5 billion.

These figures come at a time when the proportion of offshoring in the total revenue has increased to around 60 per cent in 2003-04. The growing share of offshore development, compared with on-site services, has been cited as one of the reasons for the declining growth rate of Indian software exports.

Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said the IT industry is set to cross the Rs 100,000-crore milestone this year. The contribution of the ITES-BPO firms is set to go up to 20 per cent from 18.2 per cent in the overall pie, even as that of IT services is likely to drop to 58.8 per cent from 59.4 per cent last fiscal, he added.

Nevertheless, the IT services and ITES companies together contribute close to 78 per cent to the overall revenue.

Karnik said the contribution of the IT-ITES sector is estimated to go up to 28.2 per cent of the country?s GDP from 21.5 per cent last fiscal.

According to Nasscom estimates, total exports of hardware, IT services and software and ITES for 2004-05 will be $18.1 billion ($13.3 billion), reflecting a compounded annual growth rate of 35.5 per cent. The highest growth is witnessed in ITES at 55.3 per cent.

Though services and software are still the dominant force in India?s IT export basket, the share of ITES-BPO is expected to touch 28.4 per cent, up from 27.1 per cent last year.

While IT services and exports is expected to fetch an export revenue $12.2 billion ($9.2 billion), that from ITES-BPO is put at $5.1 billion ($3.6 billion).

India?s share of the total outsourcing pie is put at $17.2 billion out of $39.6 billion. While Canada and China?s share is lesser than India?s at present, Karnik cautioned against any complacency as the Philippines, China and few other countries in Eastern Europe are catching up.

?We are in an advantageous position at present. However, China will catch up in 3-4 years. We need to continue to build on our strengths,? he said.