(Telecompaper) MTN and Telefonica announced the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement to work together to benefit from their joint scale, combined expertise and market access. South Africa-based MTN, which is active throughout Africa and the Middle East, will join the Telefonica Partners Program, an initiative launched by Telefonica in 2011, which includes operators active in a total of 35 markets in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. Under the terms of the agreement, both companies have agreed to work together to capture synergies in a number of strategic areas, such as serving enterprise customers, developing new business products and international wholesale, devices and network/IT procurement.