NEW DELHI: India's second-largest software exporter, Infosys Technologies Ltd., is not scaling back investments this year from the planned $80 million despite a slowdown in its main market, its chief executive said on Monday.

"We are continuing our technology investments and continue to focus on it because our customers need it," N R Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief executive officer of Infosys Technologies, told a news conference, at the India Economic Summit. He said Infosys would invest $80 million this year to expand capacity at its development centres at Bangalore, completing the centres at Mangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad and Pune, and in new software and a server.

A slowdown in the United States, which has deepened further after the air attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has hit revenues of several Indian software exporters. Some 98 per cent of Infosys' annual revenue is from exports and of that, 68-70 per cent comes from the US. But Narayana Murthy said the company was on track to achieve about a 30 per cent forecast growth in revenue in dollar terms this year.

Infosys posted revenue of $396.5 in the past year to March and has forecast it to be between $535-545 million in the year to March 2002. He said business was gradually returning to normal after the September 11 air attacks and visits from its clients in the US had resumed. The company is also looking at acquisitions to enhance the value of its services on offer, he said. "We are looking at various options... consulting companies in niche areas and some companies specialised in package implementation".

The new company must complement Infosys' software capabilities but he said he couldn't predict when an acquisition would be completed. "But money will not be a problem," he said.