New Delhi  - India's Reliance Communications on Monday announced that it had entered into exclusive negotiations with South Africa's largest mobile phone network operator MTN to discuss a potential combination of their businesses.

India's second-largest telecom company and the South African firm have agreed for negotiations for a period of up to 45 days to work out the details of a merger.

"We are delighted to be engaged in exclusive negotiations with MTN Group to achieve a partnership which would provide investors, customers and people of both companies a unique and global platform for exponential growth, creating substantial long-term shareholder value," Reliance Chairman Anil Ambani said.

The development came two days after Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom player, pulled out of talks with MTN, saying the companies failed to agree on the structure of a partnership.

In a statement, Reliance Communications said it had informed the Bombay Stock Exchange about the development. If the talks are successful, the combination of MTN and Reliance would create a global wireless group even larger than AT&T, the PTI news agency reported.

According to telecom industry experts, the Bharti deal would have valued MTN between 45 to 50 billion dollars.

MTN operates in 21 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, including South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and Yemen, and had 62 million subscribers at the end of March 2008.

Reliance Communications is the flagship company of Anil Ambani Group and is rated among Asia's top five most valuable telecom companies. It has about 48 million customers and is valued at nearly 30 billion dollars. (dpa)