RIL's strong performance comes even as it expects export revenues to touch Rs 4,500 crore ($1 billion) during the current fiscal. The Ambanis also expect to invest roughly Rs 4,500 crore towards the company's share buyback plans and for enhancing the promoters holding in RIL by an additional three per cent, via creeping acquisitions.

The company's sales were up by 72 per cent at Rs 6,615 crore (Rs 3,837 crore) during the quarter. The hike in production to 2.63 million tonne from 1.90 million tonne in the first quarter of 1999-00 has helped the company achieve this topline growth of 72 per cent, RIL managing director Anil D Ambani told reporters.

Operating profit (PBDIT) for the quarter shot up by 37 per cent to Rs 1,235 crore (Rs 901 crore), while the increase in cash profit was 31 per cent at Rs 937 crore (Rs 717 crore). Total exports increased eight times to Rs 1,311 crore (Rs 156 crore). Reliance has an external debt of about $1.3 billion with a weighted annual maturity of 22 years.

Commenting on the results, Ambani said, "The company is planning to achieve an export turnover of Rs 4,500 crore during the current fiscal. It alone provides nearly 10 times cover for RIL's interest payment through foreign exchanges."

During the quarter, the interest paid by Reliance was Rs 298 crore (Rs 67 crore). "The 63 per cent increase in interest expense and the 57 per cent hike in depreciation was mainly due to the capitalisation of the Jamnagar plants," Ambani said here on Thursday.

"We expect to establish new records for the full year, by crossing our targeted production volumes of 10 million tonne, enhancing our leading market share in all our major products. We intend to deploy our increasing cash flows for the creation of world class assets in our existing business," he added.

Reliance is the country's largest polyester manufacturer with a marketshare of 51 per cent. "We are open for acquisitions in areas which are fit into our existing businesses. In order to focus on the agriculture and other related businesses, we have acquired about 3,000 acres of land," Ambani said.

Meanwhile, Reliance Telecom, a part of RIL, is planning to roll out its cellular services in another 50 cities in a phased manner taking the total number of cities to 90. During the first quarter of the current fiscal, the number of cellular users has gone to 90,000 from 69,000. "We are planning to achieve 1.5 lakh users during the current fiscal," Ambani added.

Ambani reiterated the group's commitment to inject about Rs 15,000 crore to set up a fibre-optic broadband network, spanning 155 cities.

RIL will be the major investor in the Rs 15,000 crore project. However, the company has already begun parleys with world majors for strategic alliances in the new economic areas. Reliance's new initiative - Reliance Infocom will focus on value-added services including voice/data, e-commerce, media casting and web-hosting. Reliance Infocom is also looking at foraying into the national and international distance telephony as and when these sectors open up for the privatisation.

The RIL scrip on Thursday closed at Rs 357.85 at the BSE. The intra-day high and low of the scrip was Rs 361 and Rs 352.5 respectively. The RIL share saw a volume of about 63 lakh, while the value traded was about Rs 105.44 crore.