The 130-million dollar deal will allow VSNL access to a network covering 60,000km and offer its enterprise and customers seamless and end-to-end telecommunication solutions, Director of VSNL V Sainath said in a statement.

The deal is subject to approval from the governments in the US, India and other countries, he said.

The VSNL, a state owned company which the Tatas bought during the rule of BJP-led government, succeeded in acquiring TGN beating off competition from Reliance Infocomm and other companies from Latin America and Hong Kong.

The acquisition of TGN will help VSNL's bid to expand its global presence as the Indian company recently set up operations in the US, Europe, Sri Lanka and Singapore. The VSNL has a subscriber base of 750,000 and is listed in New York Stock Exchange.

The TGN had set up the submarine cable network for its own use at a cost of 2.5 billion dollars in 2001-02 that was in operation since then.

The acquisition by VSNL is the latest in a series of buy-over by big Indian corporate houses abroad. Tata Steel had purchased a Singapore steel for Rs1313 crore and Tata Motors bought South Korean major Daewoo's truck manufacturing unit in that country for Rs465 crore. Indian pharmaceutical giant Ranbaxy took over RPG (Aventis) for Rs300 crore. While

Reliance Industries group had clinched a 212 million dollar deal to acquire 56,000km Flag Telecom about a year ago.

Meanwhile, state-owned Indian energy major Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has clinched a three billion dollar deal to develop a gas block in the South Pars gas field in Iran and sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) from it.

The 500-square mile Pars field is estimated to have 436 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.

The IOC will partner Iran's Pettropars, a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company, to set up liquefying plant in south Iran from where an estimated nine million tones of LNG are expected to be exported to India and other countries.