The National Association of Software and Services Companies said on Friday that the rupee appreciation would not affect the software export growth target of 26-28 per cent during the 2003-04 fiscal.

"We will stick to our exports growth rate of 26-28 per cent. When we had given our projection; we had maintained that the projection was based on the fixed rupee-dollar rate. On a comparison basis, we would stick to our earlier projection," Nasscom President Kiran Karnik told newspersons on the sidelines of a function in New Delhi.

"It is not going to impact the software exports growth target of 2003-04 fiscal because most of it (rupee appreciation) has happened at the tail-end of the last fiscal and there was rupee appreciation during last fiscal also but it was slow, he said.

According to the projection for 2003-04, Indian software and services exports are likely to grow between 26 to 28 per cent, registering $12 billion in revenue.

He however said an appreciating rupee was a matter of concern from the industry point of view.

"We have been worried, especially in the last few days. This kind of appreciation of rupee is difficult for any export industry, more so for an industry like software where there is very low import intensity. There are industries which import a lot and export and thereby at least they save a lot of money. We don't."

India's largest unlisted software exporter Tata Consultancy Services said rupee appreciation was a part of business and companies had to learn to live with that.

"There is a four-five per cent impact of the rupee. Every company handles it differently, like taking one year hedge," Phiroz Vandrevala, executive vice president, TCS, said.

Asked if TCS had taken any hedge, he replied, "I would imagine that being a financially prudent company, we would have done that."

But he conceded the appreciation of rupee was a matter of concern.

Nasscom expects this to be a temporary phase and hopes that the government would do everything to see that the situation is not allowed to be volatile.

Another point of concern is small and medium software companies as most of the big software companies have hedged their earnings. SMEs do not have the protection the bigger companies have.

The rupee has appreciated by a whopping 9 per cent against the US dollar in 2003-04.

The rupee's relentless appreciation against the dollar is affecting the bottomlines of export-oriented firms.