The Tata-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd has earmarked funds for acquisitions.

N Srinath, director-operations, said the company is looking at investments abroad and has earmarked a certain amount.

He, however, refused to disclose the sum and pointed out that "the overseas investments included acquisitions".

Srinath was speaking to mediapersons in Mumbai at the sidelines of a conference announcing the company's tie-up with AT&T to launch a host of networking services such as ATM and frame-relay services, secure Internet Protocol dial an MPLS-based internet protocol virtual private network services.

VSNL has been increasing its overseas presence. It recently bought assets and network of a US-based company Gemplex.

The acquisitions by its wholly owned subsidiary VSNL America Inc has given access to Gemplex's assets  in the US, Europe and Far East.

Srinath said the company is eyeing these markets as "there is substantial market opportunities."

Earlier, through its subsidiary VSNL Lanka, it received an international gateway license to be an ILD player in Sri Lanka.

"The company is creating infrastructure and we may launch our operations in 2-3 months", he added.

VSNL is now focusing on growing its NLD operations, retaining market share in the international long distance and foray into corporate data service.

The company has already received clearance for 60 locations for its NLD operations and has signed interconnect agreements with Mahanagar Telephone Nigam and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

On the calling card front, VSNL is in talks with small operators overseas to route calls through its network thereby increasing its inbound traffic.

Explaining the data centre operations and gradual move of the customers up the value chain like applications of services, implementation of software etc, Srinath said, "We are ready for system integration services".

He said corporate data services is expected to contribute 10-12 per cent of revenue. With falling rate in the ILD voice, "there has been a general improvement in the outgoing traffic", he added.