Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), Russia’s top mobile phone operator, hopes to raise its minority stake in Belarus and is in talks to clinch deals in markets such as Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Kyrgyzstan.

Chief Executive Leonid Melamed told Reuters in London on Wednesday that MTS could secure double digit growth beyond 2011 only if it struck deals within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) by the end of the first half of 2009 at the latest.

"I believe that the main game will be over in the CIS by the end of the first half of 2009...After that it will be too late," Melamed said on the fringes of the Financial Times World Telecoms Conference. "The targets will be too expensive and the growth opportunities will be over."

MTS, which operates in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Armenia, had identified targets in other CIS markets and had held negotiations with those companies that might be for sale, Reuters reported.

The fast-growing Russian group, which like its peers is battling to expand into post-Soviet countries where fewer people own mobile phones, said it had also put an offer on the table in Belarus to raise its 49 percent stake in a joint venture there.

"We have discussions with our partner, Beltelecom, the state incumbent, on acquiring control of the company," he said. But he added. "It would be too early to say whether we will be successful or not.

"The only thing I can say is that our proposal is always on the table and our partner knows our permanent interest in acquiring control of the company."

With MTS in closed period ahead of third quarter results on November 20, Melamed declined to give financial details.

He said only that the company promised investors a return on investment capital (ROIC) of over 25 percent per year over the next five years.

"We’re not in the business of being number one or number two in any specific market. We are in the business of making the highest possible returns for as long a period of time as possible for our investors," he said.

"You have to look for targets that have the potential for OIBDA growth in the high 40s in the coming years. But it’s not only on their current business situation (that is of interest). It is also the synergies they could have inside the MTS Group."

MTS, which posted revenues of US$6.38 billion in 2006 and is forecasting revenue growth of 22 percent this year -- with growth of operating income before depreciation and amortisation (OIBDA) of more than 50 percent -- is also looking further afield.

The aggressive operator said it planned to outline a strategy to expand beyond the CIS borders at its first quarter results around next May.

Melamed said MTS’s financial strength allowed him to "finance all kinds of ambitious deals...within the territory of the CIS without a reduction of our credit rating".

MTS is rated at Ba2 by credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service and BB- by Standard & Poor’s, respectively two and three notches below investment-grade.